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LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

University  of  California. 


Class  "I^S^g 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Arcinive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/blackstickpapersOOritcrich 


i 


CLeA:cLt  33 
jrovv  a  niiniaUtre 


Blackstick  Papers 


By 

Lady   Ritchie 


With  PortraUs 


G.  p.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York  and   London 

f^be   ftniclierbocker    press 

1908 


BEADIH3  flOOM 


Copyright,  1908 

BY 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


Vbe  ftnicliecboclter  pttss,  flew  Iffoclt 


DEDICA  TED 

TO 

MARGARET  RITCHIE 


Trust  that 's purer  than  peart" 

ASOLANDO 


213G49 


CONTENTS 


No. 

I.  Haydn        .... 

II.  Felicia  Felix    . 

III.  St.  Andrews 

IV.  Concerning  Joseph  Joachim 
V.  Egeria  in  Brighton 

VI.  NoHANT  IN  1874 

VII.  Links  with  the  Past 

VIII.  Mary  and  Agnes  Berry  . 

IX.  Paris,  Prisms,  and  Primitifs 

X.  ** Jacob  Omnium" 

XI.  Mrs.  Gaskell    . 

XII.  Concerning  Tourguj£nieff      ^ 

XIII.  Concerning  Thomas  Bewick  . 


PAGB 
I 

16 

31 

48 
70 
87 

122 

161 
191 
222 
247 
275 


The  papers  in  the  Blacksiick  series  have,  with  two  exceptions, 
been  brought  into  first  publication  (simultaneously)  in  Cornhill 
Magazine  and  in  Putnam's  Monthly. 


PORTRAITS 


FACING  PAGB 

Felicia  Hemans,  iEXAT  thirty-three.     Frontispiece 
From  a  miniature. 

William  Makepeace  Thackeray      ...         76 

An  early  portrait  from  a  miniature  painting. 

*'  Jacob  Omnium  "  and  Marshal  P^lissier        .      204 
From  a  drawing  by  Richard  Doyle. 


BLACKSTICK  PAPERS 


No.  I 

HAYDN 

INTRODUCTION 

Readers  of  my  father's  works  will  he  fa- 
miliar with  the  name  of  the  Fairy  Blackstick 
who  lived  in  Crim  Tartary  some  ten  or  twenty 
thousand  years  ago,  and  who  used  to  frequent 
the  Court  of  His  Majesty  King  Valoroso  XXIV. 
If  I  have  ventured  to  call  the  following  de- 
sultory papers  by  the  Fairy  Blackstick' s  name, 
it  is  because  they  concern  certain  things  in 
which  she  was  interested — old  books ,  young 
people,  schools  of  practical  instruction,  rings, 
roses,   sentimental   affairs,    etc.,   etc. 

The  writer  cannot,  alas!  lay  claim  to  the 
personal  qualities  for  which  Blackstick  was  so 


2  JSlacftBttcft  papers 

remarkable,  although  she  can  fully  appreciate 
the  illustrious  lady's  serious  composure,  her 
austere  presence  of  mind,  her  courageous  out- 
spokenness and  orderly  grasp  of  events.  Black- 
stick  belongs  to  the  utilitarian  school  of  Miss 
Edgeworth  and  Mrs,  Barbauld.  The  lighter 
elegances  of  the  Mrs.  Chapones  and  the  Laura 
Matildas  of  the  day  she  put  aside.  Neither 
had  she  anything  to  do  with  your  trippings 
fanciful,  moonlight  sprites  and  fairies,  who 
waste  so  mu^h  valuable  time  and  strength  by 
dancing  on  the  green,  and  sitting  up  till  cock- 
crow; but  a  wide  and  most  interesting  field  of 
fresh  interest  remains,  which  was  specially 
her  own  domain. 

In  the  manuscripts  of  the  ''Rose  and  the 
Ring**  there  was  originally  a  rival  fairy 
introduced  as  a  contrast  to  our  Fairy  Black- 
stick,  whose  good  sense  in  the  long  run 
bore  such  excellent  fruit.  The  bad  fairy 
was  called  Fairy  Hopstick.  She  used  to 
wheedle,  and  flatter,  and  tell  lies,  and  she 
hated  the  Fairy  Blackstick,  and  could  not 
bear  to  be  in  her  company.  We  are  told 
how    she    seemed    to    shrivel     up    and    dis- 


appear  altogether  under  those  sincere  and 
searching  glances. 

There  is  a  picture  of  Hopstick  dwindling 
and  dwindling  while  Blackstick  watches  her 
with  a  severe  expression,  I  can  still  remember 
seeing  the  gold  pen  emphasising  and  darkening 
the  lines  of  the  shadows  that  brought  out  old 
Hopstick' s  paling  and  malevolent  glare  as  she 
vanished  in  bilious  spite.  She  had  a  great 
hook  nose  and  hands  like  claws. 

Whether  this  wicked  old  fairy  voluntarily 
retired  from  the  ''Rose  and  the  Ring,''  or 
whether  my  father  found  no  pleasure  in  fol- 
lowing her  career  I  do  not  know,  but  it  is 
certain  that  there  is  no  mention  of  her  left  in 
the  printed  book.  She  will  not  be  missed, 
and  Heaven  forbid  that  any  one  should  have 
to  read,  or  any  one  else  have  to  write,  a  series 
of  Hopstick  Essays! 

There  is  a  pretty  essay  by  Sainte-Beuve 
in  which  he  says  that  he  invokes  the  name  of 
Madame  de  Sivigni  at  the  beginning  of  his 
book  as  a  sort  of  oblation  or  votive  offering 
to  propitiate  the  kindly  gods;  in  the  same 
spirit  these  little  papers  are  placed  under  the 


4  JSlacftsticft  papers 

kindly  tutelage  of  the  good  fairy  of  the  ''Rose 
and  the  Ring.'' 

It  seems  a  pity  when  books  pass  away, 
as  they  undoubtedly  do,  deHghtful  books 
worthy  to  be  remembered.  One  day  every- 
body is  reading  them  and  living  in  their 
pages,  then  their  voice  is  silent  suddenly 
and  heard  no  more  among  us;  they  are  mys- 
teriously shelved — ^forgotten — consigned  to 
oblivion. 

But  sometimes  as  by  a  miracle,  even 
after  a  century  or  two,  such  books  are  called 
back  to  existence  again  and  raised  from  the 
dust,  and  their  hearts  seem  to  beat  once 
more,  and  the  time  has  come  for  their  rein- 
carnation. Then  along  with  these  books 
rise  up  the  memories  of  those  whom  they 
concern  and  of  those  who  wrote  them.  The 
people,  about  whom  they  are  written,  seem 
once  more  to  haunt  the  earth.  Dear  ghosts ! 
coming  with  grace  and  tranquil  dignity, 
whose  presence  is  welcome,  and  conveys  no 
terror  to  our  senses,  whose  influence  is  com- 
forting, whose  light  shines  from  their  past 


into  our  present.  The  earth  which  con- 
tained that  which  was  once  their  very  es- 
sence has  crumbled  away,  but  their  souls 
seem  to  reach  us  still,  and  to  come  with  a 
benediction.  Some  who  in  their  life  be- 
longed to  the  army  of  martyrs  and  who 
realised,  too  vividly  for  their  own  happiness, 
the  jarrings  and  bitterness  of  existence, 
seem  to  speak  more  calmly  now  and  with 
authority  being  dead.  There  is  a  certain 
measure  in  their  passion,  and  their  once 
grasp  of  the  sting  of  reality  and  of  long  past 
emotion,  seems  to  bring  present  help  to 
others  who  are  still  learning  their  lesson.  .  .  . 

On  the  top  shelf  of  a  friend's  bookcase  I 
by  chance  laid  my  hand  on  a  sober  grey 
volume — nearly  a  hundred  years  old.  It 
was  bom  in  1817  in  Albemarle  Street,  and 
Mr.  John  Murray  stood  godfather;  it  was 
christened  by  the  familiar  names  of  Haydn 
and  Mozart;  the  handsome  old  book  looks 
a  little  battered,  a  little  yellow,  but  still 
spreads  its  good  print  and  broad  margins 
for  our  edification.     Certainly  for  the  present 


6  3BIacftstic!?  papers 

writer  reading  in  it  has  been  a  very  fresh 
and  fragrant  experience,  Hke  that  of  gather- 
ing sweet  herbs  (rather  than  laurel  and  bay) 
out  of  one's  garden. 

The  old  book  professes  to  be  written  by 
Monsieur  L.  A.  C.  Bombet,  who  discourses 
about  people  whom  he  has  just  seen,  or  who 
have  left  the  world  so  recently  that  their 
presence  seeras  actually  felt  within  his  chap- 
ters. The  stories  Monsieur  Bombet  tells  of 
his  friends  the  musicians  of  the  day,  make 
one  long  to  have  known  these  enchanting 
centenarians,  to  have  lived  in  the  warlike 
yet  harmonious  times  when  Lulli^  and 
Rameau  and  Marcello  and  Gluck  and  Haydn 
and  Mozart  were  winning  their  great  victories. 

Composers  still  win  victories  and  write 
charming  music,  but  it  remains  to  be  seen 
what  the  final  result  will  be.  I  doubt  whether 
any  still  among  us  compose  their  scores  as 
in  the  days  when  we  are  told  how  Gluck  had 
his  harpsichord  carried  out  into  a  flowering 
meadow,    and    placing    a    bottle   of   cham- 

»  LuUi,  1633-1687;  Rameau,  1683-1764;  Marcello,  1686- 
1739J  Gluck,  1714-1787;  Haydn,  1732-1809;  Mozart, 
1756-1791. — W.  A.  L. 


pagne  at  either  end,  then  and  there  devised 
Che  Fard  for  the  delight  of  generations 
to  come.  Monsieur  Bombet,  the  writer  of 
these  musical  notes,  thus  accoimts  for  their 
publication. 

"I  was  in  Vienna  in  1808,''  he  says, 
"whence  I  wrote  to  a  friend  some  letters 
respecting  the  celebrated  Haydn,  whose  ac- 
quaintance an  accidental  occurrence  had 
fortunately  procured  for  me.  On  my  return 
to  Paris  I  found  that  my  letters  had  acquired 
some  celebrity,  and  that  pains  had  been 
taken  to  obtain  copies  of  them — I  am  thus 
tempted  to  become  an  author!*' 

It  is  a  little  puzzling  when  a  writer  who 
habitually  writes  as  some  one  else,  still 
further  proceeds  to  mystify  his  readers. 
Bombet  announces  himself  as  an  **  inex- 
perienced author'*  starting  on  his  career; 
but,  notwithstanding  the  bogus  preface,  he 
seems  to  have  been  not  Bombet  at  all,  but 
Beyle,  better  known  as  Stendhal,  the  author 
of  many  books — Le  Rouge  et  le  Noir,  Vittoria 
Accoramhoni,  and  that  striking  history  the 
Chartreuse  de  Parme  foimded  on  the  author's 


8  J5lack0ttcft  papers 

early  recollections  of  the  Great  Napoleon 
wars,  and  of  the  state  of  things  caused  by 
them  in  Italy.  Bombet — Beyle — Stendhal — 
then  finds  an  English  translator  in  no  less 
a  person  than  the  editor  of  Hymns  Ancient 
and  Modern,  who  adds  notes  when  he  sees 
occasion.  Then,  again,  looking  still  farther 
a-field,  the  Biographie  Generate  puts  forward 
a  new  author's  claims,  Stendhal  himself, 
says  the  dictionary,  having  originally  trans- 
lated the  book  from  the  Haydine  of  Carpani 
— it  puts  one  in  mind  of  the  old  nursery 
rhyme,  **Out  of  England  into  France,  out 
of  France  into  Spain,'*  etc.,  etc. 

But  the  real  country  to  which  the  book 
belongs  is  the  country  of  music.  Music 
dwells  in  Vienna,  says  the  author  (whoever 
he  may  be),  so  did  Haydn.  Haydn  was 
living  as  an  old  man  in  a  suburb  of  Vienna, 
in  a  house  standing  in  the  middle  of  a  small 
unpaved  street  where  the  grass  grew;  near 
the  barrier  of  Maria  Hilf,  on  one  side  of  the 
Imperial  Park  of  Schonbrunn.  There  he 
lived,  "surrounded  by  perpetual  silence." 
He  might,  if  he  wished  it,  end  his  days  in 


the  great  Esterhazy  Palace,  but  this  quiet 
home  is  that  of  his  choice.  "You  knock  at 
the  door,"  says  his  disciple;  "it  is  opened 
to  you  with  a  cheerful  smile  by  a  worthy 
little  old  woman,  the  housekeeper;  you  as- 
cend a  short  flight  of  stairs,  and  find  yourself 
in  the  second  chamber  of  a  simple  apartment, 
where  a  tranquil  old  man,  sitting  at  a  desk, 
is  absorbed  in  the  melancholy  sentiment  that 
life  is  escaping  from  him;  he  is  in  need  of 
visitors  to  recall  to  him  what  he  has  once 
been.  When  he  sees  any  one  enter,  his 
countenance  recovers  its  animation,  his  voice 
becomes  clear,  he  recognises  his  guest,  and 
talks  to  him  of  his  early  years.'* 

It  is  something  still  to  hear  the  echo  of 
the  small  details  which  bring  the  picture 
so  vividly  before  us.  "I  have  often  seen 
Haydn,"  says  his  biographer,  "when  he 
was  beating  the  time  to  his  own  music, 
unable  to  refrain  from  smiling  at  the  ap- 
proach of  some  passage  which  he  was  pleased 
with."  And  the  writer  also  goes  on  to 
describe,  with  a  gentle  malice,  the  amateurs 
at  the  great  Viennese  concerts  who   "dex- 


lo  JSlacftBticF?  papers 

terously  place  themselves  in  a  situation 
where  they  could  see  Hadyn,  and  regulate 
by  his  expression  the  amount  of  ecstatic 
applause  by  which  they  testified  the  extent 
of  their  raptures."  From  the  pages  of  Con- 
suelo  to  those  of  Bombet  we  may  follow 
Haydn's    steady    onward    steps. 

His  early  history  is  well  known.  What 
does  not  the  world  still  owe  to  that  good 
friend  the  peruke-maker  who  took  the  boy 
home  when  he  was  expelled  from  St.  Stephen's 
choir  at  Vienna,  and  for  very  good  reasons? 
His  voice  had  broken:  he  had  mischievously 
cut  off  the  tail  of  a  comrade's  gown — he  was 
no  longer  wanted.  These  were  the  reasons 
upon  which  people  acted  then.  Good  Keller 
took  him  home,  and  after  a  time  "spoke  to 
him  on  the  subject  of  marrying  his  daugh- 
ter."  Absorbed  in  his  own  meditations, 
dreaming  of  music,  and  thinking  nothing 
about  love,  Haydn  made  no  objection. 

Haydn  wrote  his  first  quartet  in  B  flat  at 
twenty.  It  made  a  great  mark  at  the  time; 
all  musical  amateurs  learned  it  by  heart,  but 
it  did  not  bring  him  riches.     He  was  lodging 


Dapbn  II 

in  a  house  near  the  church  of  St.  Michael  at 
Vienna,  and  he  paid  for  his  board  by  giving 
music  lessons  to  the  landlord's  two  girls. 
In  the  room  under  Haydn's  (who  often  had 
to  pass  his  winter  days  in  bed  from  want 
of  fuel)  dwelt  Metastasio,  the  Italian  poet, 
who  also  boarded  in  the  family,  and  who 
dined  every  day  with  Haydn,  and  also 
taught  him  Italian.  Metastasio  had  many 
powerful  protectors;  Haydn  also  foimd  one 
friend  not  long  after,  in  an  old  Coimt  Ester- 
hazy,  in  whose  honour  he  composed  a  birth- 
day symphony.  This  is  the  story  as  he 
told  it  himself  to  Bombet:  "The  day  of  the 
ceremony  being  arrived,  the  Prince,  seated 
on  his  throne  and  attended  by  his  Court, 
interrupted  the  music  in  the  middle  of  the 
first  allegro,  to  ask  who  was  the  author  of 
that  fine  composition.  Some  one  caused  the 
poor  young  man,  all  trembling,  to  come 
forward.  *What, '  exclaimed  the  Prince,  *is 
it  this  Moor's  music?  [Haydn's  complexion 
gave  room  for  this  sarcasm.]  Well,  Moor, 
from  henceforth  you  remain  in  my  service.' 
Then  the  Prince  continued,   'Go  and  dress 


1 2  BlacftBticK  papers 

yourself  like  a  professor;  do  not  let  me  see 
you  any  more  in  this  trim — you  cut  a  pitiful 
figure;  get  a  new  coat,  a  wig  and  buckles;  a 
collar  and  red  heels  to  your  shoes.  Go  your 
way  and  everything  will  be  given  to  you. ' " 

Confused  by  the  majesty  which  surrounded 
the  Prince,  Haydn  kissed  hands  and  retired 
to  a  comer — ^grieved,  added  he,  at  being 
obliged  to  lay  aside  his  natural  hair  and 
youthful  elegance.  He  was  second  Professor 
of  Music  now,  but  his  companions  always 
called  him  the  Moor. 

But  even  Haydn's  birthday  symphony 
did  not  keep  Prince  Anthony  alive.  When 
he  died,  however,  Prince  Nicholas,  his  suc- 
cessor— ^who  was  also  passionately  fond  of 
music  —  continued  a  gracious  protection. 
Every  day  Haydn  had  to  compose  a  fresh 
piece  of  music  for  the  Prince.  About  this 
time,  when  all  was  going  well  (it  is  like  a 
fairy  tale  over  and  over  again),  Haydn  was 
reminded  by  the  peruke-maker  that  he  had 
promised  to  marry  his  daughter  Ann,  and 
being  a  man  of  honour,  he  kept  his  word. 
Alas!  Ann  was  unsuited  for  an  artist's  wife. 


Daigbn  13 

She  was  a  prude,  and  only  cared  for  monks 
and  priests.  We  read  that  the  poor  com- 
poser's house  was  filled  with  them,  and  their 
noisy  and  edifying  conversations  interrupted 
his  studies.  To  escape  from  his  wife's  re- 
proaches he  was  obliged  to  supply  all  the 
various  convents  with  motets  and  masses,  for 
which  he  received  no  pay  from  the  good  fathers. 
"Finally,"  says  Bombet,  "he  separated 
from  his  wife,  to  whom,  as  far  as  money 
went,  he  behaved  with  perfect  honour.'' 
Here  the  editor  of  Hymns  Ancient  and 
Modern  adds  a  note,  and  points  out  that 
the  laxity  of  morals  which  prevails  among 
musical  men  is  held  by  some  to  be  a  serious 
objection  against  the  art  itself.  One  would 
have  liked  to  think  of  Haydn  and  his  barber's 
daughter  happy  in  a  peaceful  home;  but  they 
were  not  happy,  and  when  there  is  nothing 
else  to  be  said,  a  moral  sentiment  is  soothing 
to  the  feelings.  At  least  we  may  hope  that 
Mrs.  Haydn  was  fond  of  music,  and  that 
she  found  some  consolation  in  her  husband's 
exquisite  melodies  for  the  jars  and  sorrows 
of  her  domestic  life. 


14  JSlacftsticft  papers 

Did  Consuelo  now  appear  upon  the  scene? — 
Who  shall  say?  Anyhow,  after  parting  from 
his  wife,  Haydn  returned  to  the  Esterhazy 
family,  and  for  thirty  years  worked  on  un- 
intermittingly.  "Every  morning  he  rose 
early,  dressed  himself  very  neatly,  and  placed 
himself  at  a  small  table  by  the  bedside. 
He  was  the  inventor  of  symphonies,  and 
there  he  was  at  his  greatest.  When  he  was 
old  he  said  that  whenever  he  felt  the  ardour 
of  composition  declining  he  would  turn  to 
his  Rosary.  ''When  I  was  employed  on 
the  Creation,''  he  said,  "before  I  sat  down 
to  the  pianoforte  I  prayed  to  God  with 
earnestness  that  He  would  enable  me  to 
praise  Him  worthily. " 

There  is  a  pretty  account  given  of  a  visit 
from  Lord  Nelson  to  Haydn.  Nelson,  who 
greatly  admired  his  music,  asked  Haydn  for  his 
pen,  and  in  return  gave  him  his  own  gold  watch 
which  he  had  many  times  carried  into  action. 

When,  at  seventy-eight,  Haydn's  failing 
hands  could  no  longer  press   the   keys,   he 


Dal?^n  15 

could  still  hold  his  Rosary  and  his  sotil  was 
lifted  upwards.  In  May,  1809,  the  French 
were  cannonading  Vienna,  and  four  bombs 
fell  close  to  the  little  house  where  the  old 
musician  still  dwelt.  His  servants  ran  to 
him  in  terror.  He  reassured  them,  but  he 
was  taken  ill  and  had  to  be  put  to  bed.  One 
day  he  had  himself  raised  from  his  couch  and 
carried  to  his  piano,  and  striking  the  chords 
with  his  failing  hands,  he  sang  ''God  preserve 
the  Emperor*'  three  times,  then  he  became 
insensible,  and  expired  soon  after.  .  .  . 

Bombet's  little  book  winds  up  in  a  some- 
what melancholy  strain.  The  author  pro- 
ceeds to  moralise,  as  his  descendants  still 
do,  and  says  Mozart  and  Haydn  are  the  last 
of  the  great  race,  that  the  darkness  of  medi- 
ocrity is  upon  the  age !  Such  moralisings  are 
calculated  to  cheer  the  impartial  critic  com- 
ing a  century  or  two  later,  and  to  suggest 
hope  for  those  who  have  followed  in  the  age 
of  Beethoven,  Schumann,  Schubert,  Weber, 
Brahms,  and  one  other  whose  name  I  will 
not  mention,  but  will  leave  my  readers  to 
fill  in  for  themselves. 


No.  II 

FELICIA  FELIX 

INTRODUCTION 

It  chanced  that  the  proof  of  this  little  paper 
reached  the  writer  as  she  passed  in  a  yacht 
along  the  coast  where  for  so  many  years  Felicia 
Felix  dwelt  and  sang  her  song.  Some  con- 
ditions  should  make  poets  of  us  all.  From  the 
lady^  who  owned  the  s.  s.  *'  Palatine''  and  the 
captain  on  the  upper  deck,  to  the  least  ex- 
perienced guest  on  board,  the  fresh  beauty 
appealed  with  an  irresistible  charm. 

The  weather  was  very  fair  after  storms; 
young  sea-gulls  and  guillemots  were  disporting 
themselves  upon  the  crystal  of  the  waters;  a 
porpoise's  back  flashed  in  the  sunlight;  a 
far-away  ship  was  sailing  towards  Cherbourg 

» Mrs.  Yatchney  was  Sir  John  Millais's  name  for  the 
hospitable  lady. 

I6 


jfeltcta  fclix  17 

beyond  the  horizon.  Near  at  hand  rose  the 
delicate  intricate  cliffs  of  Wales,  and  the 
rockSy  bearing  their  crown  of  summer  green, 
and  their  peaceful  flocks  and  garlands,  but 
at  the  same  time  bare  and  stern  in  their  fast- 
nesses below,  and  set  at  intervals  with  white 
fortresses. 

From  Southampton  to  Milford  Bay  the  forts 
and  lighthouses  stand  vigilant,  while  all  the 
way  the  transparent  waves  dash  along  the 
shores,  and  the  gulls'  wings  beat  time  to  this 
beautiful  natural  concerto  of  strength  and 
sweetness,  to  the  ''measured  chime,  the  thunder- 
ing burst,''  of  which  Mrs.  Hemans  herself  has 
written,  and  written  so  well  that,  though  her 
poems  were  not  to  be  found  on  the  amply 
stocked  bookshelf  in  the  saloon,  of  the  five 
guests  on  board  the  hospitable  '*  Palatine,"  four 
quoted  with  pleasure  and  from  memory  from 
her  writings  as  we  sat  round  the  table  in  the 
cabin;  above,  the  winds  danced  lightly  over 
the  waters.  Fate  at  the  wheel  stands  passionless, 
and  the  yacht  speeds  on  its  way. 

It  seems  a  long  journey  from  Haydn's  silent 
old  age,  in  the  grass-grown  street,  by  the  Schon- 


1 8  JSlacf^stlck  papers 

brunn  Park  in  Vienna,  to  the  western  coast 
of  England  and  the  sentimental  emotional 
days,  of  L.  E.  L.  and  of  Keepsakes  and  Mrs. 
Hemans,  when  poetry  was  paramount  and 
poetesses  in  demand;  hut  these  are  the  Black- 
stick  Papers,  and  we  travel  about  as  the  Fairy 
directs  us,  and  so  from  the  ancient  suburb 
where  the  honoured  master  sat  waiting  the  end 
among  his  ever-enduring  scores,  we  come  off 
to  the  rock-bound  western  shores  and  the  coasts 
of  Wales,  where  the  poetess,  whom  we  have 
called  Felicia  Felix,  once  sat  writing,  and 
weaving  her  own  charming  spells.  They  are 
in  one  respect  like  Vivien's  spells — if  we  are 
to  believe  Mrs.  Hemans's  admirers — and  made 
upof  woven  paces ' '  and  of  poetry  too.  *  *  Thine 
agile  step,  the  lightest  foot  e'er  seen  on  earth,'* 
wrote  an  old  friend  in  his  last  days  describing 
Felicia  Hem^ns  on  her  native  cliffs. 

Many  years  ago  some  one  gave  the  writer 
a  little  miniature  of  Mrs.  Hemans,  by  the 
help  of  which  it  is  still  qiiite  possible  to  con- 
jure up  an  outward  semblance,  and  to  put 
a  shape  to  one's  impression  of  the  impulsive 


fellcia  ffelti  19 

being  who  paid  so  dearly  for  her  happiness, 
her  sensibiHty,  her  undoubted  powers  and 
beauty,  and  her  charming  poetical  gifts. 
Her  touching  lines  To  my  own  Portrait 
may  have  applied  to  this   very  miniature: 

Yet  look  thou  still  serenely  on, 
And  if  sweet  friends  there  be 

That  when  my  song  and  soul  are  gone 
Shall  seek  my  form  in  thee, 

Tell  them  of  one  for  whom  't  was  best 

To  flee  away  and  be  at  rest. 

The  picture  represents  a  woman  of  about 
twenty-eight;  she  has  dark  glossy  curls, 
delicately  marked  features,  a  high  colour; 
her  bright  full  sad  eyes,  her  laughing  lips, 
give  one  an  impression  of  womanly  pre- 
dominance and  melancholy  and  gaiety  all 
at  once.  She  wears  a  black  dress  with  gigot 
sleeves  and  the  jewellery  of  her  time — ^the 
buckle,  the  hair  chain  and  locket,  and  also 
a  golden  ornament  in  her  dark  hair.  There 
is  perhaps  (but  this  is  merest  guess-work) 
a  certain  sense  of  limitation — shall  I  call  it 
persistency? — in  the  general  expression  of 
the  countenance.     It  is  hard  to  generalise 


20  35lacfe6ticft  ipapetB 

from  so  slight  a  sketch,  but  perhaps  some- 
thing of  this  impulsiveness  and  inadaptability 
may  have  been  the  secret  of  much  of  the 
trouble  of  her  life. 

Felicia  Hemans,  who  had  been  married 
at  twenty,  and  who  at  sixteen  had  first  known 
and  fallen  in  love  with  Captain  Hemans, 
at  twenty-five  was  already  parted  from  her 
husband  for  ever;  one  of  her  children  had 
died,  the  other  four  boys  were  left  to  her 
care,  and  she  along  with  them  had  returned 
to  her  mother's  home.  There  are  absolutely 
no  other  facts  given  of  her  domestic  circum- 
stances in  the  various  memoirs  of  her  by  her 
own  sister,  by  Mr.  Henry  Chorley  and  Mrs. 
Lawrence,  published  soon  after  her  death, 
except  the  remarkable  statement  that  Cap- 
tain Hemans  went  away  for  change  to  Italy, 
and  there  remained  for  seventeen  years, 
which  certainly  seems  a  very  long  time. 
We  are,  however,  told  that  he  occasion- 
ally wrote  when  necessity  arose.  After  her 
mother's  death  Felicia  Hemans  offered  to 
go  out  to  join  her  husband,  but  to  this  he 
would  not  consent,  and  she  then  set  to  work 


ffeUcta  ifeltx  21 

to  make  a  life  for  herself  at  home,  to  edu- 
cate her  children,  and  to  go  on  writing  poetry, 
and  thus  add  the  useful  prose  of  pounds  and 
shillings  to  her  own  particular  treasure  of 
poetic  feeling.  She  wrote  for  her  children's 
sake,  she  wrote  for  her  own  art's  sake  too. 
Some  of  her  poems  have  become  passwords 
in  the  land.  Who  does  not  still  know 
Casablanca  and  The  Better  Landf 

Among  Mrs.  Hemans's  friends  were  Words- 
worth and  Walter  Scott,  who  were  fond  of 
her.  Her  women  friends  were  numerous 
and  very  enthusiastic.  One  of  them,  a 
well-known  authoress.  Miss  Jewsbury,  writes 
of  her:  "I  might  describe  her  for  ever,  and 
never  should  I  succeed  in  portraying  Egeria! 
She  was  a  Muse,  a  Grace,  a  variable  child, 
a  dependent  woman,  the  Italy  of  human 
beings.  ..." 

I  have  advisedly  called  my  little  paper 
Felicia  Felix,  for,  though  her  music  was 
sad,  the  musician  was  sweet  and  full  of 
charming  harmonies;  it  was  something  no 
doubt  of  her  own  lament  that  she  poured 
out  in  profuse  strains  of  most  natural  and 


22  3Blacft6tlcft  papers 

unpremeditated  art.  In  Annuals  and  For- 
get-me-nots, in  Poets'  Comers,  she  uttered 
her  song  and  relieved  her  heart.  She  was 
not  old  even  when  she  died;  and  she  must 
have  enjoyed  singing  and  pouring  forth  to 
the  last.  Her  pretty  name,  her  charming 
countenance,  her  luxuriant  curls,  and  old- 
patterned  graces,  perhaps  still  add  to  the 
interest  which  belongs  to  her  personality. 
The  men  and  women  of  England  and  Amer- 
ica were  delighted  with  her,  every  one — except 
one  person.  Indeed,  I  have  read  an  article 
in  a  magazine  of  that  day  in  which  she  is 
compared  to  Desdemona,  though  Desdemona, 
as  we  know,  only  sang  her  songs,  and  they 
were  not  published  till  after  her  death. 

To  return  to  Mrs.  Hemans,  we  learn  that 
editors  wrote  by  every  post  for  contributions 
from  her  pen,  and  admirers  trod  on  each 
other's  heels,  and  packets  of  poetry  arrived 
by  every  mail;  also  there  came  messages  and 
compliments  from  America,  where,  if  she 
would  have  consented  to  settle  down,  Felicia 
was  offered  a  definite  competence  by  a  pub- 
lishing firm.     There  is  a  story  of  a  chair  in 


jfeltcia  iFelti  23 

which  she  once  sat  kept  sacred  for  years  and 
standing  apart  in  a  gentleman's  library  and 
shown  to  admiring  visitors. 

The  poetess  has  herself  described  some 
of  her  own  following  of  *' plaguing  admir- 
ers/' ''teasing  adorers/'  etc.,  etc.  Her  spirits 
would  rise  on  occasion,  and  she  enjoyed  the 
moment  to  the  full;  but  all  the  same  it  is 
very  plain  that  the  poor  soul  was  often  sad 
at  heart,  and  that  a  bright  hearthstone 
would  have  been  much  more  to  her  taste 
than  the  pedestal  which  she  had  to  put  up 

with. 

All  this  was  happening  in  the  glorious 
days  of  innocent  enthusiasm,  in  the  days 
of  Miss  Mitford  and  Mme.  de  Stael,  following 
upon  the  mysterious  triumphs  of  Hannah 
More.  Ladies  held  their  own  then,  not  by 
main  force,  but  by  divinest  right.  Corinnes 
were  plentiful,  and  Edgermonds  still  more 
plentiful.  "  Myself, "  Felicia  Felix  once  wrote 
on  the  margin  of  the  book  in  which  she  had 
been  reading  one  of  Corinne's  passionate 
outbursts.  And  so,  though  she  wept,  she 
must  have  also  often  wiped  away  those  tears, 


24  3Blacft0tfcft  ipapets 

which  brought  her  interest  arxd  friends  and 
occupation,  and  which  helped  to  educate 
her  boys,  whose  loyal  affection  and  admira- 
tion is  pretty  to  read  of  still. 

"Mrs.  Hemans  is  somewhat  too  poetical 
for  my  taste,''  said  Sir  Walter  in  1823 — ''too 
many  flowers  and  too  little  fruit;  but  that 
may  be  the  cynical  criticism  of  an  elderly 
gentleman,  for  it  is  certain  that  when  I  was 
young  I  read  verses  with  infinitely  more 
indulgence,  because  with  more  pleasure  than 
I  can  now.'*  Sir  Walter  Scott's  criticisms 
were  addressed  to  another  friendly  poetess, 
Joanna  Baillie. 

Mrs.  Hemans  once  wrote  a  play  about 
the  Sicilian  Vespers  which  fell  very  fiat  in 
London,  to  the  bitter  disappointment  of  her 
schoolboys.  It  was  subsequently  brought 
out  by  the  Siddonses  in  Edinburgh,  and 
with  success,  greatly  owing  to  Sir  Walter's 
kind  auspices.  *'I  trust  the  piece  will  suc- 
ceed," he  wrote  to  Miss  Baillie  again  in  1824, 
"but  there  is  no  promising,  for  Saunders 
is  meanly  jealous  of  being  thought  less 
critical  than  John   Bull,   and  may  perhaps 


ffelicta  jfelti  25 

despise  to  be  pleased  with  what  was  less 
fortunate  in  London.  I  wish  Mrs.  Hemans 
had  been  on  the  spot  to  make  any  alterations 
which  the  players  are  always  demanding. 
I  will  read  the  drama  over  more  carefully 
than  I  have  yet  done,  and  tell  you  if  any- 
thing occurs.  The  enclosed  line  will  show 
that  the  Siddonses  are  agreeable  to  act  Mrs. 
Hemans's  drama.  When  you  tell  the  tale 
say  nothing  about  me,  for  on  no  earthly 
consideration  would  I  like  it  to  be  known 
that  I  interfered  in  theatrical  matters;  it 
brings  such  a  torrent  of  applications  which 
it  is  impossible  to  grant  and  often  very  pain- 
ful to  refuse.  Everybody  thinks  they  can 
write  blank  verse,  and  'a  word  of  yours  to 
Mrs.  Siddons/  etc.,  etc,  I  have  great  plea- 
sure, however,  in  serving  Mrs.  Hemans, 
both  on  account  of  her  own  merit  and  your 
patronage.'* 

Most  old  letters  that  are  worth  keeping 
at  all  speak  for  themselves,  and  it  is  not  only 
by  what  is  in  them  but  by  what  is  left  out 
of  them  that  they  speak,  and  tell  us  some- 
thing of  the  people  who  wrote  and  of  the 


26  3Blacft6ticft  papers 

spirit  in  which  they  wrote.  The  writer  has 
been  set  thinking  of  Mrs.  Hemans  by  a 
correspondence  which  came  into  her  hands 
the  other  day  through  the  kindness  of  Mr. 
Alfred  Graves,  who,  at  his  uncle's  death, 
found  some  letters  which  had  passed  between 
Mrs.  Hemans  and  Dr.  Robert  Graves,  her 
faithful  friend  and  admirer.  In  this  corre- 
spondence one  meets  with  two  interesting 
personalities — and  yet  it  all  reads  more  like 
the  echo  of  a  story  rather  than  the  story 
itself;  though  the  manuscript  lies  there  in  the 
delicate  even  handwriting  in  which  Dr.  Graves 
has  copied  out  the  extracts.  Most  of  them 
were  afterwards  published  in  Mr.  Chorley's 
Life  of  Mrs.  Hemans.  The  letters  were 
edited  by  Dr.  Graves,  perhaps  almost  too 
scrupulously  for  our  modem  taste,  which 
is  interested  in  definite  impressions  and 
vivid  details  rather  than  in  topographical 
generalities. 

Felicia  was  a  saddened  woman,  wistful, 
expecting  more  from  life  than  life  itself  had 
to  give,  and  looking  to  nature  for  sympathy 
in    her    troubles.     Dr.    Graves    was    a    very 


ffelicia  jfelix  27 

young  man;  for  him  too  nature  was  beauti- 
ful, only  life  was  happy — ^the  waters  laughed, 
the  skies  were  blue.  He  had  just  completed 
his  college  career,  he  was  entering  holy 
orders.  Mrs.  Hemans  must  have  been  about 
seven  and  thirty  at  the  time  when  he  became 
tutor  to  her  youngest  son. 

In  all  the  correspondence  between  our 
poetess  and  her  kind  unchanging  friend,  the 
descriptions  of  scenery,  the  remarks  upon 
life  and  literature,  form  the  chief  staple; 
there  is  little  that  is  personal,  and  yet  the 
trust  and  response  between  these  two  people 
is  felt  and  realised  and  seems  to  reach  us 
still.  **I  was  happy  among  you  all,**  she 
writes  to  him;  **I  found  response  for  my 
heart  and  food  for  my  mind  as  well.**  The 
world  they  saw,  the  friends  they  met,  the 
books  and  the  poetry  they  read  together, 
all  were  happy  signs  of  friendship  and 
sympathy. 

People  look  upon  poetry  from  very  different 
points  of  view;  in  this  very  correspondence 
we  come  upon  the  account  of  a  religious- 
minded  Irish  mother  standing  by  her  daugh- 


28  IBlacftsttcM  papers 

ter's  death-bed  and  exclaiming  passionately, 
*'0h!  my  child,  my  child,  the  pride  of  litera- 
ture has  destroyed  you!  ..."  This  poor 
dying  daughter  had  published  some  suc- 
cessful verses,  and  the  religious  parent 
could  not  feel  her  conscience  reconciled  to 
this  mundane  achievement. 

The  latter  five  or  six  years  of  life '  were 
spent  by  Mrs.  Hemans  in  Ireland,  where  one 
of  her  brothers  was  then  living,  and  where 
the  Graves  family,  all  kind  good  friends, 
were  ever  ready  to  welcome  her;  that  one 
member  being  most  specially  devoted  to  her 
among  them  all. 

There  was  certainly  a  great  deal  of  friend- 
ship going  in  those  days;  people  led  more 
monotonous  lives  than  they  do  now,  and  had 
hours  to  spare  for  it.  Sentiment  was  more 
continuous,  and  much  more  a  recognised 
condition  of  things  than  at  present.  Passions 
now  have  become  our  somewhat  stagey  ideals, 
and  feeling  itself  has  to  play  a  sort  of  Dumb 
Crambo  in  order  to  get  recognition. 

When  Dr.  Robert  Graves  was  eighty-five 
years  old,  the  centenary  of  Felicia  Hemans 's 


Jfelicia  ifelti  29 

birth  came  round  in  the  natural  course  of 
time,  and  his  nephew  has  told  me  how  the 
old  friend,  lying  on  his  sick-bed,  rallied  to 
dictate  one  last  poem,  one  last  greeting  to 
the  memory  of  the  beautiful  woman  who 
had  been  his  Egeria,  and  whom  all  his  life 
long  he  had  admired  and  loved: 

Tresses  of  sunny  auburn  fell  in  ringlets 
And  harmonised  with  thy  soft  hazel  eyes. 
Thy  height  perfection,  and  thy  springing  motion 
Was  as  an  Oread  nymph's. 

Everything  was  coming  to  an  end,  but 
the  past  and  its  romance  was  still  shining 
far  away.  It  is  like  gazing  at  a  beautiful 
prospect  in  nature,  to  hear  of  a  charming 
and  faithful  sentiment  which  time  does  not 
destroy  in  its  remorseless  course. 

One  contemporary  of  Felicia's  was  L.  E.  L., 
who  must  have  also  loved  her,  for  when  Mrs. 
Hemans  died  L.  E.  L.  wrote  a  farewell  poem 
which  speaks  true  feeling: 

O  weary  one!  since  thou  art  laid 

Within  thy  mother's  breast, 
The  green,  the  quiet  mother  Earth, 

Thrice  bless M  be  thy  rest. 


OF  THE 


so  JSlacftsticft  papers 

Thy  heart  is  left  within  our  hearts, 
Altho*  life's  pang  is  o'er, 

But  the  quick  tears  are  in  my  eyes, 
And  I  can  write  no  more. 


No.  Ill 

ST.  ANDREWS 
A  FRONTISPIECE   IN    BLACK   AND   WHITE 

All  across  the  sands,  that  seem  to  stretch 
farther  than  they  ever  did  before,  on  this 
October  afternoon  the  people  are  sprinkling 
in  couples  and  companies,  and  spreading  and 
strolling  along  by  the  sea  with  their  children. 
The  children,  for  once  neither  at  work  nor 
at  play,  but  in  their  Sunday  clothes,  are  walk- 
ing demurely  in  happiness;  the  heavens  are 
also  dressed  in  their  Sunday  best,  of  vaporous 
cloud  and  azure  and  arching  stillness;  the 
birds  look  like  specks,  so  high  do  they  -fly  over- 
head. Though  the  sea  is  very  far  off  it  makes 
a  great  noise;  the  crisp  waves  thunder  along 
the  distant  line  in  foam  and  whiteness.     Then, 

to  the  west,  the  hills  of  Fife  come  breaking  in 

31 


32  Blacftsticft  papers 

like  the  waves  of  the  sea,  only  these  land-waves 
take  cycles  instead  of  minutes  to  flow.  They 
advance  in  immeasurable  slowness,  in  ex- 
quisite  curves  of  light,  of  grey,  of  aquamarine. 
As  the  people  pass  and  repass,  the  sands  are 
stamped  with  hundreds  of  footsteps  crossing 
each  other.  One  enthusiastic  admirer  of  nature, 
a  homely  old  body  in  shabby  black,  is  so  taken 
with  the  beauties  of  land  and  sea  and  heaven, 
that  she  has  walked  into  the  middle  of  a  puddle, 
and  there  she  stands  rapt  and  happy  and 
regardless  of  the  usual  cares  of  this  world, 
A  pretty  little  girl,  in  a  bright  green  frock, 
conscious  of  new  boots  and  light  curls,  stops 
short  to  stare  at  the  enraptured  woman;  a 
little  dog,  seeking  for  companionship,  suddenly 
leaps  up  against  the  new  boots  and  the  Sunday 
frock,  the  child  starts  back  and  runs  away, 
the  little  dog,  that  amateur  of  heels,  veers 
round  and  sets  off  boldly  towards  St.  Andrews 
in  search  of  better  company.  As  I  follow  his 
lead,  I  see  the  light  falling  in  crisp,  defining 
rays  across  the  rocks  on  which  the  town  is 
built,  and  every  tower,  and  clustering  roof  and 
gable,  and  weathercock,  stands  out  distinct. 


St  ant)rew6  33 

I 

Not  the  least  charm  of  St.  Andrews — ■ 
that  famous  Scottish  shrine  of  education — is 
the  fanciful  contrast  between  the  centuries. 
The  old  ruins  of  near  a  thousand  years  ago, 
with  their  many  grim  legends  of  fire  and 
sword  and  axe,  make  a  fine  backgroimd  for 
the  youthful  aspirations  and  good  spirits  of 
the  boys  and  girls  who  belong  to  this  present 
1 901.  At  St.  Andrews,  the  great  North 
Sea  (to  which  a  thousand  years  must  seem 
like  a  drop  in  the  ocean  of  time)  lies  some- 
times blue,  sometimes  frothing  in  foam  be- 
yond the  grey  ruins.  The  inland  landscapes 
vary  with  the  lights  as  they  flow  along 
the  country-side,  and  in  October  the  beeches 
are  crisp  with  lovely  tints,  and  the  pretty 
chestnut  glades  of  Strathtyrum  are  aflame. 
The  autumn  sessions  have  begun;  the  schools 
are  open  not  only  for  the  babes,  but  for  stu- 
dents of  every  age.  All  day  long  the  Uni- 
versity lads  and  lasses,  in  their  quaint  red 
gowns  and  trencher  caps,  are  flitting  on 
their  way  to  and  from  the  professors'  lectures. 


34  3Blacftsticft  papers 

Sometimes  they  stand  in  groups,  waiting 
with  their  books  and  papers  under  the  great 
archways  of  the  University,  or  you  may  see 
them  coming  out  of  the  old  houses  and 
hurrying  up  the  narrow  stone  alleys  that 
lead  to  North  Street,  where  the  University 
stands  firmer  than  either  castle  or  cathedral. 
If  you  walk  along  the  old  streets  at  certain 
hours  on  week-days,  in  the  mornings  and 
in  the  early  forenoon,  you  might  almost 
expect  to  meet  the  Pied  Piper  himself  passing 
with  long  strides  over  the  stones,  in  his 
fantastic  garb  and  playing  as  he  goes;  so 
urgent  and  pressing  are  the  swarms  of  rosy 
children  hurrying  by.  They  come  out  of 
the  houses  and  down  the  stone  flights,  trotting 
up  on  their  tidy  little  stumpy  legs,  pursuing 
one  another,  dressed  in  hoods  and  caps  and 
quaint  gay-coloured  garments  of  their  moth- 
ers' fashion  rather  than  the  milliner's  mode; 
boys  and  girls  too,  from  the  small  ages  down 
to  the  very  tiniest,  running  along  in  a  busi- 
nesslike, independent  sort  of  way,  well  at 
home  in  the  old  streets  and  alleys.  These 
small  Scots,  almost  without  exception,  carry 


St  Hnbrew5  35 

books  and  copybooks  or  little  satchels  slung 
on  their  shoulders;  for  it  is  no  wicked  demon, 
but  a  benevolent  spirit,  the  Pied  Piper  of 
education,  that  is  calling  them  irresistibly. 
A  distant  school-bell  is  ringing  volubly, 
and  one  may  see  the  children  disappearing 
one  by  one,  as  in  the  legend,  up  the  steps 
which  lead  to  their  Parnassus.  It  is  a 
charming  little  multitude  to  watch;  dividing 
into  two  processions,  each  treading  on  the 
other's  heels  and  hurrying  to  be  in  time; 
the  doors  open  and  shut  again,  and  they 
pass  away  from  our  ken  into  the  Schools. 

As  for  the  University,  it  was  founded 
some  six  hundred  years  ago,  in  those  times 
when  kings  came  on  horseback  with  their 
followers  to  pray  in  the  now  ruined  choirs, 
bringing  gifts  and  golden  caskets  and  whole 
parishes  for  guerdons;  in  days  when  400 
monks  walking  in  procession,  from  the  Abbey 
up  North  Street,  raised  up  a  thanksgiving 
psalm  for  the  opening  of  the  University. 
In  later  palmy  times  the  port  was  crowded 
with  ships;  kings,  queens,  and  their  courtiers 
and  followings  lived  in  the  old  houses  round 


36  JSlacftsttcft  papers 

about  the  great  cathedral.  Embassies  came 
from  foreign  parts,  Spanish  ambassadors, 
Italian  nuncios ;  Mary  of  Guise  was  welcomed 
as  a  bride;  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  followed  her 
mother  as  a  young  widow,  coming  to  ride 
about  and  to  disport  herself  in  the  fine  air. 
She  would  not  be  plagued  with  business  at 
St.  Andrews,  she  said,  and  dismissed  the 
envoys  who  came  to  trouble  her  fun. 

After  the  fun  came  disaster,  followed  by 
silence.  Only  thirty  years  ago — ^so  an  old 
student  has  told  me — ^grass  and  dandelions 
grew  in  the  deserted  streets  which  led  to  the 
great  gateways  of  the  University. 

But  the  streets  are  well  trodden  now,  the 
ruins  stand  firm  upon  the  rocks  that  over- 
hang the  sea.  Now  it  is  to  the  muses  that 
our  philosophers  pay  their  court ;  the  charm- 
ing ladies  come  from  afar,  not  to  dance  and 
make  merry,  but  to  teach  and  discourse  and 
study  for  themselves.  As  one  walks  along 
the  worn  stones,  to-day  seems  crowded  with 
other  days,  and  yet  vivid  with  its  own  original 
grace.  Indeed  the  life  and  interest  at  St. 
Andrews  are  delightful  to  realise,   and  the 


SU  Hn^rew5  37 

longer  one  stays  there  the  more  one  learns 
how  vivid  its  present  is. 

II 

The  contrast  between  the  life  of  the  young 
in  the  nineteenth  and  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury is  certainly  very  striking,  and  one  won- 
ders how  the  Scotch  children  of  former  times 
survived  their  early  training,  or  how  their 
schoolmasters  survived  the  training  of  them. 
From  sunrise  to  sunset  in  winter,  from  seven 
in  the  morning  to  six  in  the  evening  in  sum- 
mer, the  work  of  the  schools  used  to  continue. 
In  those  days,  before  coming  to  school,  many 
of  the  children  had  to  walk  for  miles  across 
the  moors,  sometimes  carrying  upon  their 
backs  loads  of  straw  to  thatch  the  school- 
house  roof  where  the  wet  came  in,  or  of  reeds 
to  lay  upon  the  ground.  So  late  as  in  1677 
Mr.  Thomas  Kirk,  who  travelled  in  Scot- 
land, described  the  children  doing  their 
lessons  stretched  on  the  floor  of  the  schools 
upon  the  mudded  layers  of  rushes;  there 
were  no  benches,  no  desks  to  write  upon, 
there  was  no  glass  to  the  windows,  and  often 


38  JSlacftsttck  papers 

the  place  was  filled  with  dense  clouds  of 
smoke  from  the  peat  fire.  ''It  was  like 
pigs  in  a  stye,"  said  Mr.  Thomas  Kirk. 

From  1600  to  1700  the  Grammar  School 
at  Glasgow  met  at  five  in  the  morning.  On 
Sundays  there  was  little  relaxation;  besides 
the  long  services  which  they  had  to  attend, 
the  children  were  expected  at  school  no  less 
than  four  times  in  the  course  of  the  day,  to 
repeat  by  heart  and  to  produce  the  notes 
they  had  taken  of  the  heads  of  the  dis- 
courses. Also  the  master  used  to  be  pro- 
vided with  a  long  pole  to  tap  the  heads 
of  the  inattentive  during  these  discourses. 
I  am  quoting  from  a  very  interesting  book 
lately  published,  The  Social  Life  of  the 
Eighteenth  Century  in  Scotland,  by  H. 
G.  Graham,  in  which  one  reads  that  the 
holidays  were  as  short  as  the  working  hours 
were  long — a  week  or  fortnight's  ''vacance" 
at  midsummer  was  about  the  limit;  we  also 
read  that  the  schoolmasters  were  in  deepest 
poverty — ^no  houses  were  provided  for  them 
and  their  families.  "When  the  teacher  was 
married,  the  cares  and  trials  of  domestic  life 


St^  Hnbtcws  39 

added  terribly  to  those  of  scholastic  work, 
in  one  little  dirty,  overcrowded,  un venti- 
lated, ill-lighted  apartment,  where  blended 
the  bawling  of  the  master,  the  shrill  voices 
of  the  scholars,  the  crying  of  infants.  The 
salaries  were  from  £^  to  ;^io  a  year  at  one 
time;  then  they  were  increased  to  ;^i2,  and 
finally,  in  1782,  the  bitter  complaint  of  the 
schoolmasters  was  attended  to,  and  they 
were  granted  salaries  of  £1$ — equal  to  £45 
in  these  times;  also  we  hear  of  a  two-roomed 
house  and  garden  finally  added  for  their 
benefit. 

"The  schoolmaster  had  to  be  a  man 
of  education,  to  teach  Latin,  mathematics, 
grammar;  he  was  also  expected  to  recite 
passages  from  Milton,  to  sing  a  psalm  before 
an  investigating  body.  They  had  their  per- 
quisites indeed — candles  at  Candlemas,  and 
a  penny  from  each  scholar  on  the  first  Mon- 
days of  May,  June,  and  July.  We  also  learn 
that  the  Town  Council  of  Paisley  presented 
the  head-master  of  the  Grammar  School 
there  with  half  a  guinea  to  buy  a  three- 
cornered  hat  as  a  token  of  respect.*' 


40  JBIacftsticft  papers 

Many  of  us  will  remember  another  de- 
scription of  life  in  1806 — home  life  among 
people  of  some  position,  taken  from  that 
delightful  Memoirs  of  a  Highland  Lady, 
edited  by  Lady  Strachey: 

"Though  seldom  ailing,  we  inherited  from 
our  father  a  delicacy  of  constitution,  de- 
manding great  care  during  our  infancy.  In 
those  days  it  was  the  fashion  to  take  none. 
All  children  alike  were  plunged  into  the 
coldest  water,  sent  abroad  in  the  worst 
weather,  fed  on  the  same  food;  our  life  was 
one  long  misery.  .  .  . 

"In  town  a  large  long  tub  stood  in  the 
kitchen  court,  the  ice  on  the  top  of  which 
had  often  to  be  broken  before  our  horrid 
plunge  into  it;  we  were  brought  down  from 
the  very  top  of  the  house,  four  pairs  of  stairs, 
with  only  a  cotton  cloak  over  our  night- 
gowns, just  to  chill  us  completely  before  the 
dreadful  shock.  How  I  screamed,  begged, 
prayed,  entreated  to  be  saved,  half  the 
tender-hearted  maids  in  tears  beside  me — 
all  no  use.  .  .  .  Nearly  senseless  I  have 
been  taken  to  the  housekeeper's  room,  which 


5t»  Hnbtews  41 

was  always  warm,  to  be  dried.  Revived  by 
the  fire,  we  were  enabled  to  endure  the  next 
bit  of  martyrdom — an  hour  upon  the  low 
sofa,  our  books  in  our  hands,  while  our  cold 
breakfast  was  preparing.  My  stomach  re- 
jecting milk,  bread  and  tears  generally  did 
for  me." 

The  father  (whom  they  devotedly  loved 
nevertheless)  eventually  quelled  the  rebel- 
lion^ against  milk: 

"In  his  dressing-gown,  with  his  whip  in 
his  hand,  he  attended  the  breakfast.  .  .  . 
He  began  with  me  [says  the  Highland  Lady]. 
My  beseeching  look  was  answered  by  a  sharp 
cut,    followed   by   as   many   more   as   were 


»  It  is  perhaps  scarcely  fair  only  to  quote  these  particular 
passages,  when  others  in  this  same  book  tell  of  the  many 
joys  of  this  much-tried  childhood  which,  hardships  apart, 
was  a  happy  one:  "Little  princes  and  princesses  in  our  own 
land,  where  feudal  feelings  still  reigned  in  their  deep  in- 
tensity, and  the  face  of  Nature  was  so  beautiful;  we  had 
rivers  and  lakes  and  fields,  moors,  woods,  mountains,  and 
heather;  the  dark  forest,  the  wild  fruits,  wild  flowers,  the 
picturesque  inhabitants,  legends  of  our  forefathers,  fairy 
tales  and  raids  of  the  clans,  haunted  spots — all  and  every- 
thing that  could  touch  the  imagination  there  abounded, 
and  acted  as  a  charm  on  the  children  of  the  Chieftain,  who 
was  adored;  for  my  father  was  the  father  of  his  people,  loved 
for  himself  as  well  as  for  his  name. " 


42  J3lacf{Bttck  papers 

necessary  to  empty  the  basin.  Jane  obeyed 
at  once — William  after  one  good  hint.  I 
had  an  aching  head,  a  heavy,  sick,  painful 
feeling  which  spoilt  my  whole  morning,  and 
prevented  my  appetite  for  dinner,  where 
again  we  constantly  met  with  sorrow.  It 
often  ended  in  a  black  closet,  where  we 
cried  for  an  hour  or  more." 

Six  years  later  in  the  Highland  home 
austerities  seem  still  part  of  the  educa- 
tion: 

*'In  winter  we  rose  without  candle  or  fire 
or  warm  water;  and  really  in  the  Highland 
winters,  when  the  breath  froze  on  the  sheets, 
and  the  water  in  the  jugs  became  cakes  of 
ice,  washing  was  a  very  cruel  necessity.  As 
we  could  play  our  scales  in  the  dark,  the 
two  pianofortes  and  the  harp  began  the  day's 
work.  How  very  near  crying  was  the  one 
whose  turn  set  her  at  the  harp!  The  strings 
cut  the  poor,  cold  fingers.  Martyr  the  first 
sat  in  the  dining-room  at  the  harp;  martyr 
the  second  put  her  blue  fingers  on  the  keys 
of  the  grand  pianoforte  in  the  drawing- 
room." 


St^  Hnbrews  43 

III 

In  the  ''Rose  and  the  Ring"  book,  Fairy 
Blackstick  expounded  her  views  on  educa- 
tion some  ten  or  twenty  thousand  years  ago. 
At  a  comparatively  recent  date,  so  lately  as 
two  thousand  years  ago,  so  we  read  in  the 
Encyclopaedia,  work  began  with  play,  and 
the  Greeks  taught  music  and  g3minastics 
only — gymnastics  to  make  the  body  strong, 
music  to  cause  the  spirit  to  vibrate.  And 
indeed,  as  one  thinks  of  it,  one  wonders 
what  better  education  has  been  devised 
since  then,  except  that  the  Greeks,  who  did 
not  consider  women  much  (unless  they  hap- 
pened to  be  goddesses),  kept  all  these  good 
things  for  their  philosophers  and  their  young 
men.  But  the  ruling  heads  of  the  colleges 
of  St.  Andrews  are  more  liberal,  and  they 
allow  young  Scotswomen  to  share  in  the 
lectures  and  examinations  with  their  brothers. 
Fairy  Blackstick  herself  might  have  liked 
to  be  Warden  of  University  Hall,  which  has 
lately  been  opened  for  women,  with  its  many 
windows  and  sunshiny  rooms  and  corridors, 


44  3BIacft5ttcft  papers 

where  those  who  have  not  much  silver  or 
gold  may  gain  other  possessions  more  to 
be  desired  at  extraordinarily  moderate 
charges.  One  professor  of  St.  Andrews,  a 
certain  good  Knight  Hospitaller,  has,  among 
others,  taken  a  very  special  interest  in  this 
fine  foundation. 

Besides  the  University  and  its  Hall,  other 
great  schools  at  this  seat  of  learning  welcome 
the  girl-students.  There  are  the  schools  of 
St.  Leonard's,  overflowing,  under  their  popu- 
lar head-mistress's  rule.  There  are  the 
junior  schools;  there  is  the  great  Madras 
College,  where  Cardinal  Beaton's  bones  lie 
at  peace;  all  the  foundations  are  flourishing 
and  doing  good  work.  Let  us  take  any  one 
of  the  colleges  at  hazard.  St.  Katharine,  the 
last  come  of  the  saints  of  St.  Andrews  I  The 
house  stands  within  a  courtyard;  there  are 
extra  rooms  built  out  behind  the  schoolhouse, 
a  washhouse  has  been  turned  into  a  music- 
room,  the  stables  are  now  workshops,  beyond 
which,  again,  are  the  trim  gardens  where  the 
children  work  in  their  play-hours.  This  head- 
mistress has  views  of  her  own  about  edu- 


cation,  which  to  her  mind  should  not  be  only 
abstract  but  practical;  she  believes  in  manual 
occupations  as  well  as  in  mental  algebra,  in 
gardening,  in  bookbinding,  and  carpentering 
for  girls  as  well  as  boys,  and  all  these  form 
part  of  the  course. 

When  we  came  in,  the  little  workwomen 
were  all  hurrying  up  for  their  afternoon 
lessons,  with  quick  pretty  ways,  tossing  back 
their  tawny  locks,  putting  on  their  pinafores, 
falling  to  then  and  there  without  a  moment 
wasted.  All  the  signs  of  their  craft  were 
ranged  about  the  long  room — tables  (green 
as  educated  tables  are  nowadays),  there  were 
also  rush-bottomed  chairs,  we  could  see  the 
bookcases  growing  under  their  fingers.  The 
bookbinders  had  a  mistress  to  themselves, 
and  were  learning  the  woven  secrets  which 
lie  hidden  behind  all  smooth  book-boards 
and  leathern  backs.  Some  of  these  lit- 
tle girls  were  binding  up  Shakespeare's 
sonnets. 

They  loved  the  work — one  could  see  it  in 
their  faces,  and  their  hands,  the  very  way 
they  flung  back  their  long  curls  and  slipped 


46  JSlacftsticft  papers 

into  their  pinafores  shows  their  pleasure  and 
interest. 

St.  Katharine's  is  for  junior  students, 
from  eight  to  fourteen  years,  who  are  con- 
sidered too  young  for  St.  Leonard's;  some 
come  from  India,  there  are  some  whose 
parents  have  to  Hve  abroad,  and  who  like 
to  send  their  little  ones  to  this  wholesome 
air,  this  liberal  original  teaching.  The  doc- 
trine taught  is  not  very  complicated — "geo- 
graphy and  obedience  would  embrace  most 
things,"  says  the  head-mistress.  Miss  Gray.^ 
She  let  us  watch  the  little  artificers  for  a 
time,  then  she  led  the  way  to  another  part 
of  the  school,  crossing  the  big  garden  with 
the  many  little  gardens  along  the  wall, 
mounting  a  staircase  which  leads  to  a  gallery 
in  a  big  hall,  where  a  piano  was  sounding 
and  some  thirty  or  forty  little  pupils  were 
learning  to  dance;  and  immediately  the 
article  in  the  Encyclopaedia  about  gymnastics 
and  music  came  into  my  mind. 

What  is  a  more  charming  sight  than  happi- 

»  Now  head-mistress   of   St.   Paul's  School   for   Girls  at 
Brook  Green. 


St^  Hnt)tew0  47 

ness?  This  was  happiness  to  music,  with 
youthful  skirts,  locks,  and  limbs  flying,  and 
a  beating  time  and  time,  and  a  waving  of 
arms,  and  a  flitting  of  maidens,  driven  by 
the  ruling  piano,  music  was  lord  of  all  for 
the  moment.  The  little  girls  had  brought 
balls,  which  they  threw  up  in  the  air  and 
caught  again  to  the  dance-tunes;  they  ad- 
vanced from  the  far  end  of  a  long  hall;  they 
parted,  divided,  mingled  once  more,  with 
a  most  sweet  natural  gleam  and  zest,  eyes 
and  hands  and  feet  all  alert  and  dexterously 
keeping  to  the  measure,  whilst  the  dancing 
mistress  passed  up  and  down  ordering  the 
mazes  as  she  went,  and  every  combination 
came  true  and  seemed  to  be  a  part  of  the 
music. 

I  heard  of  a  little  boy  the  other  day  who 
objected  to  visiting  his  first  school,  although 
warmly  invited  to  do  so.  It  smells  of  lessons, 
he  said  gloomily.  Little  girls  will  not  talk  in 
this  way  of  their  school-days  at  St.  Andrews. 


No.  IV 
CONCERNING  JOSEPH  JOACHIM 

Before  life  was  experience — ^when  it  was 
curiosity,  hope,  speculation,  all  those  desires 
with  which  existence  begins — the  writer  was 
sent  by  her  father  to  some  musical  meetings, 
which  are  now  so  long  over  that  the  very 
rooms  in  which  they  first  originated  do  not 
exist  any  more.  They  were  Willis's  Rooms, 
out  of  St.  James's  Street.  The  Musical 
Union  was  the  name  given  to  the  concerts, 
which  were  an  admirable  invention  of  Mr. 
Ella's  to  try  to  raise  the  standard  of  music 
from  certain  shallow  depths  to  which  it 
seemed  to  be  gradually  drifting.  There  used 
to  be  an  encouraging  picture  of  a  lyre  on 
the  programme,  and  a  pretty  little  sentence 
— "II  piii  gran  omaggio  alia  musica  sta  nel 
silenzio" — sprinted  in  coloured  letters  at  the 

^48 


Concerntno  3o5epb  5oacb(m  49 

end  of  it.  This,  alas !  is  not  yet  the  universal 
opinion;  promiscuous  clap-trap  applause  and 
boisterous  encores,  often  before  the  last 
notes  have  died  away,  being  still  in  fashion. 

I  believe  the  Musical  Union  eventually 
migrated  to  St.  James's  Hall,  but  it  was  in 
Willis's  cool  and  stately  halls,  with  the  faded 
velvet  seats,  that  the  writer  for  the  first 
time  heard  those  familiar  and  delightful 
strains  of  Joachim's  violin,  which  have  so 
happily  sounded  on  through  the  latter  half 
of  a  century  of  change  and  perplexity,  ever 
bringing  truth  and  strength  and  tranquillity 
along  with  them. 

For  those  of  us  who  are  not  blessed  with 
the  Fairy  Blackstick's  length  of  life  and  her 
five-and-twenty  thousand  years  or  so  of 
active  interest,  it  is  no  little  good  fortune 
to  have  lived  in  our  generation,  alongside 
the  people  whom  we  can  understand  more 
or  less;  who  express  what  is  best  in  us,  and 
who  have  added  so  widely  to  our  limited 
experience,  just  because  we  can  sympathise 
with  them  and  follow  their  well-loved  lead. 
One  is  sorry  for  those  who  are  bom  too  late 


so  JBlacftsticft  papers 

or  too  soon  for  their  journey  through  life 
— who  are  fighting  against  the  tide  instead 
of  going  along  with  it — or  perhaps  trying 
to  stem  the  unknown  ways  alone,  ahead  of 
their  natural  companions.  And  so  I  repeat 
it  is  an  inestimable  privilege  to  have  lived 
at  the  same  time  with  certain  expressions  of 
consummate  beauty,  which  contain  the  best 
ideals,  the  best  realisations  of  which  we  are 
capable;  and  it  has  been  the  present  writer's 
fortune  to  be  able  to  count  upon  more  than 
one  certain  and  unfailing  music  through 
life — ^noble  guiding  strains  which  have  led 
the  way  along  many  chances  and  changes, 
only  growing  more  familiar,  more  loved  as 
time  has  passed  on.  It  is  quite  certain  that 
people  are  not  made  happy  by  remembering 
tours  de  force  or  wonderful  exploits  in  exe- 
cution— indeed  some  of  us  are  even  too 
ignorant  to  appreciate  them — ^but  mere  listen- 
ers, ignorant  though  they  may  be,  are  cer- 
tainly made  happier  (and  better  so  far  as 
they  are  more  happy)  by  the  remembrance 
of  an  unfailing  flow  of  beauty,  sometimes 
quite  beyond  description,  one  of  the  revela- 


ConcernfuQ  Josepb  5oacbtm  51 

tions  upon  earth  of  some  law  reaching  far 
beyond  it. 

All  this  has  been  specially  brought  home 
to  the  writer  by  a  book  which  has  lately 
appeared,  an  English  version  of  Andreas 
Moser*s  Life  of  Joseph  Joachim,  now  trans- 
lated by  Lilla  Durham.  It  will  be  fotmd 
full  of  interesting  things  to  those  who 
can  go  back  for  years  to  the  revelations  of 
this  master's  noble  art.  In  this  satisfying 
history  both  the  writer  and  the  translator 
seem  touched  by  something  of  Dr.  Joachim's 
own  sincerity  and  thoroughness.  The  first 
sentence  of  Mr.  Fuller  Maitland's  introduction 
strikes  the  keynote  of  it  all:  "Few  biograph- 
ers/' he  says,  ''have  had  to  tell  the  story 
of  a  life  so  full  of  dignity,  usefulness,  and 
beauty."  The  story  flows  on  from  the  very 
first  with  steady  advance. 

Blackstick  herself  might  have  presided  at 
Joachim's  birth.  We  read  of  the  usual  fairy 
seventh  child,  the  son  of  Julius  and  Fanny 
Joachim,  bom  near  Presburg  in  Hungary  in 
1 831;  of  the  grave,  reserved  father,  devoted 
to  his  home;  of  the  loving,  capable  mother; 


52  3Blacft6ttcft  papers 

of  the  family  in  modest  circumstances,  not 
rich  people,  but  placed  beyond  the  struggle 
for  daily  bread.  We  do  not  learn  that  this 
was  in  any  way  a  specially  musical  family; 
but  one  of  the  sisters,  called  Regina,  could 
sing,  and  little  Pepi  could  listen,  and  with 
all  his  might. 

The  writer  has  heard  Dr.  Joachim  say  that 
he  first  learnt  to  play  on  a  little  toy  fiddle, 
which  some  one  brought  him  from  a  fair. 
Happy  friend  to  have  given  such  a  gift  to 
such  a  "  Pepi " !  The  little  fiddle  is  written  of 
in  the  memoir,  and  we  read  that  a  friend  of 
the  family  first  taught  the  child  to  play  upon 
it;  then  the  father,  recognising  Pepi's  great 
natural  gifts,  determined  to  have  him  seri- 
ously taught  the  violin,  and,  being  a  sensible 
man,  took  him  to  the  best  violinist  in  all 
Pesth.  He  was  Serwaczynski,  Konzert- 
meister  there,  and  we  have  his  portrait  in 
the  book,  an  anxious-looking  man  in  a  black 
satin  stock  and  an  old-fashioned  coat  with 
a  high  collar.  There  is  also  a  picture  of  little 
Joseph  himself,  with  rows  of  beautiful  stiff 
curls,  and,  notwithstanding  his  tender  years, 


Concerntng  5osepb  5oacbim  53 

the  same  calm  expression  that  we  are  accus- 
tomed to.  A  pretty  story  is  told  how,  after 
thirty  years,  Joachim  somewhere  recognised 
the  tones  of  his  first  master's  violin  which 
he  had  heard  as  a  child,  and  was  able  to 
buy  it  for  his  own.  It  was  an  Amati  and  a 
valuable  instrument. 

At  the  opera  at  Pesth  very  good  music  was 
to  be  heard.  Beethoven's  Ruinen  von  Athen 
was  given  there,  and  the  overture  to  Konig 
Stephan.  It  was  at  Pesth,  in  the  Casino, 
that  Pepi  made  his  first  appearance,  by  his 
master's  wish.  The  picture  of  the  little 
fair-haired  boy,  with  his  stiff  curls,  was  taken 
at  this  time,  and  the  delighted  audience 
seems  to  have  applauded  as  loudly  sixty 
years  ago  as  it  does  to-day.  Dr.  Joachim's 
only  recollection,  however,  is  of  the  sky-blue 
coat  and  the  mother-of-pearl  buttons  which 
he  wore  for  the  occasion.  A  delightful  spirited 
lady  now  appeans  upon  the  scene;  this  is  a 
relative,  Fraulein  Fanny  Figdor,  who  en- 
treats that  her  charming  little  cousin  Pepi 
should  be  sent  to  Vienna,  where  music  is  more 
vibrating  and  alive  than  at  sleepy  Pesth — 


54  Blac!?0ticft  papers 

she  is  like  a  character  out  of  Goethe,  so 
confident  and  full  of  resource  and  conviction. 
Her  persuasions  and  those  of  his  teacher 
prevail,  and  the  father  and  Fanny  and  Pepi 
all  set  out  together  for  the  capital. 

The  first  master  to  whom  they  applied 
was  Helmesberger,  a  distinguished  teacher, 
whose  two  young  sons  were  also  admirable 
performers.  He  declared  that  nothing  could 
ever  be  made  of  little  Joachim  because  of  the 
stiffness  of  his  bowing.  Joachim's  father, 
who  hated  half  measures,  though  bitterly 
disappointed,  at  once  resolved  to  take  his 
boy  away  and  bring  him  up  to  some  other 
profession.  Happily  for  the  whole  world, 
Ernst  happened  to  come  to  Vienna  about 
this  time,  and  immediately  recognised  Joa- 
chim's rare  gifts;  he  advised  the  parents  to 
continue  his  musical  education,  and  to  put 
Pepi  imder  Joseph  Bohm,  from  whom  he 
himself  had  learned  wisdom  and  music. 

This  kind,  austere  teacher  took  Joachim 
to  his  own  home  and  treated  him  as  a  son. 
He  had  no  children,  but  he  loved  his  pupil 
and  he  loved  true  art. 


Concerning  Josepb  5oacbtm  55 

At  the  time  when  Joachim  first  went  to 
Vienna,  the  great  traditions  of  the  past  were 
somewhat  waning.  Beethoven  and  Schu- 
bert had  been  dead  some  twelve  years;  the 
cheerful  and  homely  melodies  of  slighter 
composers  were  better  suited  to  display  the 
brilliant  gifts  of  those  who  rather  wished  to 
show  their  capabilities  than  to  play  great 
music.  Paris  was  supposed  to  be  the  centre 
of  all  art  and  of  all  success,  and  there  was 
consequently  some  talk  of  sending  Joachim 
after  his  studies  with  Bohm,  to  Paris.  Again 
the  spirited  Fanny,  now  Frau  Witgenstein, 
with  a  home  and  husband  of  her  own  in 
Leipzig,  interfered  for  Joseph's  benefit.  She 
declared  that  Leipzig  was  the  only  place  for 
Joachim,  and  the  only  school  where  he  had 
anything  to  learn. 

Mendelssohn  was  at  Leipzig,  the  director 
of  the  concerts  there,  and  he  brought  many 
musicians  round  about  him,  he  was  suc- 
cessful and  popular,  respected  and  greatly 
loved.  Moser  says  that  among  others  *'  Rob- 
ert Schumann  looked  up  to  Mendelssohn 
as  to  a  high  mountain."     Some  master-pen, 


56  35Iacftsticft  lpaper5 

a  Carlyle's,  a  Jean  Paul's,  should  paint  for 
us  this  charming  centre,  all  these  delightful 
people,  coming  and  going  in  the  streets  of 
the  ancient  town,  and  dwelling  in  their 
special  atmosphere  of  music,  of  good  fellow- 
ship, of  high  endeavour. 

Mendelssohn  was  greatly  interested  in  the 
young  student.  His  first  recommendation 
was  that  Joachim  should  have  a  tutor,  not 
for  the  violin — in  his  art  the  boy  wanted  but 
little  teaching — ^but  for  Latin,  for  geography, 
for  history,  for  divinity,  for  all  the  education 
befitting  a  superior  man;  but  at  the  same 
time  F61icien  David,  the  great  violinist,  who 
was  then  at  Leipzig,  gave  Joachim  many 
hints  which  he  afterwards  knew  how  to  make 
useful. 

What,  notwithstanding  every  drawback, 
would  not  any  of  us  now  give  for  a  ticket  of 
admission  to  that  concert  at  the  Gewandthaus 
where  Joachim  made  his  first  public  appear- 
ance in  Leipzig!  The  concert  was  given  by 
Madame  Pauline  Viardot,  who  sang,  while 
Schumann  stood  behind  the  hall  listening 
to    the    performance.      Madame    Schumann 


ConcerntrtG  Josepb  Joacbint  57 

and  Mendelssohn  played  together  on  two 
pianofortes  one  of  Schumann's  compositions; 
Mendelssohn  accompanied  Joachim,  but,  un- 
fortunately, just  at  the  beginning  of  this 
piece  Joachim's  string  snapped,  owing  to  the 
heat  of  the  room.  They  had  no  sooner 
started  once  more  when  there  was  an  alarm 
of  fire,  and  the  whole  company  rushed  out 
of  the  place. 

Joachim  was  six  years  in  Leipzig.  Men- 
delssohn's constant  advice  to  his  pupil  was 
to  never  play  anything  but  the  best  music 
conscientiously,  with  more  thought  for  the 
composition  than  for  the  effect  which  was 
produced.  Young  as  he  was,  Joachim  had 
his  own  standard;  he  responded  to  Mendels- 
sohn's serious  views,  he  did  not  care  for 
virtuosity,  and  from  what  he  had  heard 
rather  shrank  from  an  introduction  to  Liszt. 
It  is  interesting  to  read  of  Mendelssohn's 
reply  to  Joseph  when  he  expressed  this 
feeling.  *'Wait  a  bit,  my  son;  there  is  so 
much  that  is  unusual  and  beautiful  in  his 
playing,  that  I  feel  sure  you  will  return  con- 
verted.    God  speed  you.     Greet  Liszt  from 


58  JBlacftsttcft  papers 

me.'*  And  Mendelssohn  was  right  in  his 
prediction. 

When  Mendelssohn  died  suddenly,  in  1847, 
the  whole  musical  world  mourned  for  Ly- 
cidas.  To  Joachim  it  was  a  deeper  personal 
sorrow,  one  of  the  keenest  he  ever  experienced. 

There  is  always  something  satisfying  in 
the  thought  of  past  and  present  friendship 
between  people  who  are  one's  friends  in 
spirit — it  is  only  an  accident  whether  one 
knows  them  or  not  in  person.  The  friendship 
between  Joachim  and  Mendelssohn  is  as  de- 
lightful to  think  of  as  that  between  Jona- 
than and  David.  It  is  always  a  sort  of  music 
to  hear  of  true  friends.  Can  one  not  imagine 
these  two  as  they  come  walking  together  in 
the  evening,  and  the  boy  Joachim  answers 
Mendelssohn's  charming  talk  with  intelligent 
apprehension  and  caps  a  quotation  from 
Jean  Paul  with  the  apt  application  of  a 
passage  from  his  Flegeljahref  Mendelssohn 
looked  at  him  with  surprise,  and  from  that 
evening  we  are  told  his  interest  in  the  Teufels- 
hraten,  as  he  called  him,  turned  into  the 
greatest    affection.     He    agreed    with    Schu- 


((UNW^BSITYJ 

Concerning  Josepb  5oacbtm  59 

mann,  "He  only  placed  in  the  first  rank 
artists  who  could  not  only  play,  possibly 
one  or  two  instruments,  but  who  were  also 
human  enough  to  understand  the  writings 
of  Shakespeare  and  Jean  Paul." 

Only  a  night  ago,  in  a  friend's  house  in 
Eaton  Place,  the  writer  heard  M.  Coquelin — 
great  master  in  another  art — describing  all 
the  difference  he  felt  between  playing  the 
living  thoughts  of  genius,  such  as  Moli^re's 
and  Shakespeare's,  and  forcing  himself  to  ex- 
press the  still-bom  fancies  and  fashions  of 
the  hour. 

When  Joachim  first  came  to  England,  in 
1844  (his  second  visit,  when  I  first  heard  him, 
was  in  the  'fifties),  Mendelssohn  wrote  to  the 
secretary  of  the  Hanoverian  Embassy:  **  These 
few  lines  are  to  introduce  Joseph  Joachim, 
from  Hungary,  a  boy  of  fifteen,  of  whom  I 
have  become  exceedingly  fond  during  the 
nine  months  I  have  known  him;  indeed  I 
really  love  him  and  think  very  highly  of 
him,  a  thing  I  can  say  of  few  of  my  recent 
acquaintances.  .  .  .  His  interpretation,  his 
perfect    comprehension    of    music,    and    the 


6o  IBlacftsttcft  papers 

promise  in  him  of  a  noble  service  to  art  [is  not 
this  finely  said?]  will,  I  am  sure,  lead  you  to 
think  of  him  as  highly  as  I  do.  ...  Be 
kind  to  him,  look  after  him  in  great  London, 
introduce  him  to  those  of  our  friends  who 
will  appreciate  such  an  exceptional  per- 
sonality, and  in  whose  acquaintance  he  for 
his  part  will  also  find  pleasure  and  stimulation ; 
I  here  allude  principally  to  the  Horsleys. " 

This  letter  of  Mendelssohn's  recalls  to  the 
writer's  mind  an  unforgettable  meeting  with 
Joachim  many  years  after,  when  on  a  misty 
afternoon,  with  a  young  cousin,  a  friend  of 
Miss  Horsley's,  she  went  to  inquire  for  Mrs. 
Horsley,  the  mother  of  the  family,  who  was 
dangerously  ill  in  her  house  on  Campden  Hill. 
There  was  a  garden  in  front  of  the  house,  and 
the  door  opened  as  we  came  up,  and  then 
some  one  who  had  been  watching  from  the 
window  ran  out  quickly  from  within,  passing 
the  maid  who  had  come  to  the  door,  and 
saying:  "I  saw  you  crossing  the  garden. 
Come  in,  come,  both  of  you.  Come  quietly; 
my  mother  is  very,  very  ill.  But  Joachim 
is  here,  he  has  come  to  play  to  her;  she 


Concerning  Josepb  Joacbtm  6i 

wanted  to  hear  him  once  more.  ..."  In 
a  dim,  curtained  back  room  looking  across 
another  garden  the  dying  mistress  of  the 
house  sat  propped  up  with  cushions  in  a 
chair.  Joachim  stood  with  his  back  to  the 
window,  holding  his  violin,  and  we  waited 
in  silence  by  the  doorway  while  he  played 
gravely  and  with  exquisite  beauty.  The 
sad  solemn  room  was  full  of  the  blessing  of 
Bach,  coming  like  a  gospel  to  the  sufferer 
in  need  of  rest. 

Mrs.  Horsley  only  lived  for  a  few  days 
after  this,  and  now  her  daughter  has  followed 
her,  that  charming,  gracious,  emphatic,  grey- 
haired  Sophy,  bestowing  kindness  and  help 
and  music  upon  all  in  her  path.  She  had 
been  the  intimate  friend  of  Mendelssohn, 
who  dedicated  one  of  his  most  lovely  com- 
positions to  her.  She  treasured  his  portrait 
and  his  drawings;  we  almost  seemed  to  see 
him  there  when  she  spoke  of  him  to  us. 

Weimar,  that  wonderful  little  Olympus 
where  so  many  gods  have  congregated,  seems 
to  have  an  instinct  for  great  men,  and  was 


62  JSlacftBtlcft  papers 

the  first  that  offered  to  Joachim  official  recog- 
nition. The  sketch  of  Weimar  and  its  mu- 
sical politics  and  vehement  partisanship  is 
well  given  in  Dr.  Moser's  book,  its  discussions 
and  enthusiasms,  the  battles  of  the  new  and 
the  old  school,  under  the  rule  of  Liszt,  the 
arbiter  of  these  passionate  strifes.  Liszt 
himself  belonged  to  the  school  of  those  who 
would  weave  impulse  and  passion  into  their 
art  rather  than  beauty,  order,  and  self- 
suppression.  Anyhow,  he  was  the  irresistible 
and  brilliant  leader  and  advocate  of  the  new 
school  of  music.  Raff  and  Biilow  were  also 
at  Weimar  studying  under  the  great  Kapell- 
meister. Joachim,  who  was  now  appointed 
Konzertmeister,  was  for  a  time,  as  Moser 
tells  us,  "completely  conquered  by  the  magic 
spell  of  the  new  characteristic  music.*'  He 
took  immense  pains  to  raise  the  standard 
of  the  Weimar  orchestra,  and,  together  with 
his  friends,  constantly  gave  and  conscien- 
tiously rehearsed  Wagner's  music.  Biilow, 
we  are  told,  was  delighted  to  have  won 
Joachim  over,  as  he  thought,  to  the  ma- 
gician's influence,  for  Joachim  himself  was 


concerning  5osepb  Joacblm  63 

regarded  as  only  next  to  Liszt  at  Weimar 
in  importance  and  power. 

One  day  came  a  letter  from  Richard 
Wagner  to  Liszt,  which  is  given  by  Moser: 
"I  have  just  been  reading  the  score  of  my 
Lohengrin — as  a  rule  I  do  not  read  my 
own  work.  I  have  an  intense  longing  that 
this  work  should  be  performed.  I  hereby 
beseech  you,  perform  my  Lohengrin.  You 
are  the  only  man  to  whom  I  would  make 
this  request;  to  no  one  but  you  do  I  trust 
the  making  of  this  opera.  *' 

I  have  read  somewhere  of  the  circum- 
stances under  which  this  letter  was  written. 
It  was  in  Paris,  after  his  great  disappoint- 
ments there,  that  one  day  sitting  in  his  room, 
lonely,  despondent,  poor,  numbed,  as  he 
said  pathetically,  not  knowing  where  to 
turn,  to  find  rendering  for  that  which  was 
his  creation,  Wagner's  eyes  happened  to 
fall  upon  the  score  of  Lohengrin  lying 
neglected  on  a  shelf.  Suddenly  an  immense 
pity  came  over  him,  a  pity  to  think  of  that 
beautiful  music  buried  for  ever  in  a  sepul- 
chre of  paper  and   fruitless   hope.     It  was 


64  3Blac??6ttcft  ipapers 

under  this  influence  that  he  wrote,  and  almost 
by  return  of  post  he  heard  from  Liszt  that 
Lohengrin  was  to  live  and  to  be  produced 
to  the  best  of  their  ability  by  the  musicians 
on  the  Weimar  stage. 

There  is  one  happy  idyllic  interlude  which 
must  not  be  passed  over  in  the  story  of  Joseph 
Joachim's  life — the  coming  to  Weimar  of 
Bettina,  Goethe's  child-friend,  now  a  mother 
with  charming  grown-up  daughters.  To  her 
rooms,  day  after  day,  come  the  young,  happy 
musicians;  they  sing,  they  make  melody, 
they  wander  by  moonlight,  they  make  love — 
at  least  Grimm  makes  love  and  eventually 
marries  the  attractive  Gisela.  On  the  last 
night  they  all  sit  up  till  three  in  the  morning 
to  see  the  ladies  off  by  the  earliest  train. 

Sterner  times  followed  upon  all  this  happi- 
ness and  gaiety.  Joachim  was  appointed 
to  Hanover  as  Konzertmeister,  while  Liszt 
was  still  ruling  at  Weimar  and  bringing  the 
"new  school"  more  and  more  to  the  front. 
He  was  performing  his  own  and  Wagner's 
compositions  almost  exclusively;  and  not 
only  this,  but  he  was  preaching  a  somewhat 


Concerning  5oBepb  5oacbtm  65 

arrogant  doctrine,  and  declaring  that  both 
conductor  and  performers  must  possess  a 
certain  power  of  enthusiastic  divination  for 
the  proper  performance  of  his  works!  Then 
it  was  that  Joachim  made  a  protest,  not- 
withstanding the  cost  it  was  to  his  loyal  and 
responsive  nature.  But  he  had  to  speak 
the  truth  and  without  reserve.  "  I  am  quite 
impervious  to  your  music,*'  he  writes,  in  a 
memorable  letter  to  Liszt;  *'it  contradicts 
everything  in  the  works  of  our  great  masters 
on  which  my  mind  has  been  nurtured  since 
the  days  of  my  early  youth.  ...  I  cannot 
be  a  helpmate  to  you,  and  I  must  no  longer 
let  it  appear  that  I  serve  the  cause  that  you 
and  your  disciples  advocate." 

Rubinstein  compared  Joachim  in  his  youth 
to  a  novice  in  a  convent  who  knows  he  can 
choose  between  the  convent  and  the  world, 
and  who  has  not  yet  taken  his  part.  We 
know  which  part  in  life  Joseph  Joachim  has 
always  preferred. 

When  the  writer  first  personally  knew  Dr. 
Joachim,  it  was  in  her  father's  house  at 
Palace    Green.     She    can    remember    seeing 


66  :S5lac??0tlc??  ipapers 

him  coming  in  one  rainy  afternoon  in  spring- 
time, and  entering  the  long  Hght-blue  drawing- 
room.  He  was  a  young  man  then.  He  was 
carrying  a  rolled-up  scroll — it  was  an  original 
score  of  Beethoven's  which  some  one  had 
just  given  him;  he  showed  us  the  cramped, 
fierce  writing,  the  angry-looking  notes  of 
those  calm  harmonies.  I  have  never  again 
seen  a  Beethoven  MS. ;  but  the  remembrance 
is  distinct  of  that  one,  as  well  as  of  Joachim's 
talk  of  Beethoven  himself,  of  his  mighty 
self  and  his  protesting  nerves,  and  his  im- 
possible difficulties  with  housekeepers  and 
maids-of-all-work.  I  have  sometimes  heard 
Joachim  speak  of  Schumann  with  the  gentlest 
affection  and  reverence,  and  then  of  Brahms 
— above  all  of  Brahms,  and  of  his  first  meet- 
ing with  him,  as  one  of  the  greatest  emotions 
of  his  life. 

We  had  once  the  happy  opportunity  of 
hearing  the  Joachim  quartet  at  Dresden.  It 
seemed  to  me  then,  as  now  it  seems  to  me 
when  I  remember  it,  that  I  had  never 
heard  music  before:  so  beautiful,  so  exqui- 
site did   it  sound   in   that   dark,   bare   Ge- 


Concctntna  Josepb  Soacbim  67 

wandthaus  by  the  Elbe.  It  may  be  a  foolish 
fancy,  but  to  the  writer's  mind  music  never 
sounds  so  well  as  when  there  is  flowing 
water  within  reach — ^whether  it  is  best  for 
those  who  listen  by  the  Rhine  at  Bonn  or 
by  the  Elbe  at  Dresden  matters  little;  or 
are  we  writing  of  a  romance  of  Schumann's, 
a  concerto  of  Mozart's,  that  were  sounding 
but  a  few  days  ago  in  an  old  Chelsea  house? 
Joachim  was  not  there  personally,  but  it 
was  his  teaching  and  inspiration  that  called 
forth  the  harmony  by  the  theatre.  One 
of  his  most  faithful  followers  was  sitting 
at  her  piano;  his  friend  and  pupil,  Mrs.  Lid- 
dell,  had  brought  her  violin.  To  the  writer, 
hurrying  home  afterwards  with  happy  pulses, 
the  very  mists  of  winter  seemed  to  bear  the 
beautiful  strains  along  with  them,  and  the 
tides  of  the  stream  to  repeat  it. 

But  perhaps  of  all  places  the  Hochschule 
at  Berlin  is  the  place  in  which  one  likes  best 
to  remember  Dr.  Joachim,  and  to  think  of 
him  in  the  midst  of  his  young  pupils,  as  they 
sit  in  serried  rows  in  the  concert-room.  It 
is  a  sight  to  satisfy  the  touched  spectator, 


68  BlacftBtfcft  papers 

for  so  much  that  is  personal  goes  into  music 
that  to  watch  the  master  gravely  facing  the 
pupils,  and  that  vast  young  assembly  eagerly 
attentive  and  following  his  guiding  hand  and 
glance,  seems  a  revelation  to  the  music  itself. 
Many  of  the  scholars  are  scarcely  more  than 
children,  but  they  play  as  if  they  were  men 
and  women  grown,  and  they  answer  in  a 
moment  to  his  sign.  Some  especial  bar  or 
cadence  does  not  go  rightly;  he  makes  them 
repeat  it  again  and  again;  suddenly,  with 
a  flash  along  the  line,  they  understand  cor- 
rectly, and  then  the  music  goes  on  once  more. 
It  was  Beethoven's  great  concerto  for  the 
violin  that  they  were  playing  when  we  were 
there.  A  few  parents  and  friends  sit  listening, 
a  daughter  of  Mendelssohn's  among  them. 
As  the  countless  bows  sweep  up  and  down, 
an  up-springing  wave  of  swelling  sound 
spreads  from  one  end  to  the  other  of  the  great 
hall.  The  yoimg,  serious  musicians  bring 
the  movement  triumphantly  to  its  close; 
the  master  looks  approving;  then  comes  a 
moment's  pause.  "Miss  Leonora  Jackson 
will  play  the  solo,"  he  says,  and  a  girl  of 


Concerning  Josepb  3oacbtm  69 

sixteen,  in  a  straw  hat,  with  a  long  plait  of 
hair,  steps  quickly  forward,  lays  her  straw 
hat  upon  a  chair,  tosses  back  her  fair  hair, 
and  begins  to  play. 

It  was  a  child  playing  to  the  others,  a 
child  with  perfect  taste  and  sure  handling; 
the  young  orchestra  listened  and  approved, 
and  when  she  finished  burst  into  gay,  de- 
lightful applause.  The  master  joined,  too, 
clapping  his  two  hands.  It  was  a  happy 
moment  for  everybody.  .  .  . 

This  Hochschule,  as  we  know,  was  perhaps 
Joachim's  greatest  interest  in  life,  and  to  it 
we  owe  the  spread  of  his  wise  and  beautiful 
teaching. 


NO.  V 

EGERIA  IN  BRIGHTON 
I 

It  is  curious  to  see  how  quickly  people  and 
generations  change  their  fashions.  Wits, 
bricks,  and  bonnets  alike  whirl  in  every  di- 
rection, shoot  out  loops  or  pinnacles,  then 
suddenly  collapse.  Just  now  our  cities,  as 
well  as  our  clothes  and  our  impressions,  be- 
long to  every  age  and  country,  passing  with 
bewildering  rapidity  from  Grecian  to  Gothic, 
from  Chinese  pagodas  to  Byzantine  mosaic, 
to  Decadence,  to  Renaissance,  to  Swiss  cot- 
tages, or  what  not.  Caves  and  Stonehenges 
may  be  the  next  fashion,  for  all  I  know.  Per- 
haps Brighton  is  more  than  any  other  place 
an  example  of  this  indescribable  jimible  of 
rapid   fancies,   except   that  the  sea-line  re- 

70 


Bgerta  In  BrtQbton  71 

mains  fortunately  unchanged,  whatever  may 
be  happening  on  shore.  And  yet,  with  all 
the  ugliness  of  the  huge  hotels  rearing  their 
pretentious  fronts,  of  the  houses  that  are 
turned  out — and  all  their  contents — ^by  the 
hundred  dozen,  there  is  a  certain  magnifi- 
cence in  the  long  line  of  human  habitation 
coasting  the  great  sea;  lit  by  the  morning 
gleams  and  by  the  sunsets,  and  then  later 
on  by  the  moon  and  the  stars,  and  by  the 
thousand  lights  of  different  radiance,  which 
shine  up  as  the  daylight  goes  out.  There 
is  a  certain  individuality  in  the  breath  of 
Brighton  air,  as  well  as  in  its  busy  streets, 
where  so  much  of  the  pretty  homely  past 
remains,  notwithstanding  all  that  has  been 
added  to  it;  from  the  Oriental  fashions  of 
the  Regency  to  the  Cubitt  taste  of  the  early 
Victorian  times  which  succeeded  to  the  all- 
conquering  flourishes  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. These  flourishes,  for  the  present,  we 
have  unanimously  consented  to  ignore  in 
our  advancing  culture,  just  as  Catherine 
Morland  rejected  the  whole  city  of  Bath; 
and  the  writer  feels  that  it  requires  no  little 


7a  3BIacftsticft  papers 

courage  nowadays  to  confess  that  sometimes 
in  the  evening  when  the  Hght  is  clear,  and 
the  htmdred  spires  and  domes  and  pinnacles 
of  the  Pavilion  rise  in  a  multitude  upon  the 
sky,  a  certain  glamour  has  fallen  upon  her 
soul,  and  she  has  looked  up  and  almost 
expected  to  hear  the  cries  of  the  Moslem 
watchmen  calling  upon  the  faithful  from 
the  minarets. 

An  adventurous  traveller  who  got  as  far 
as  Brighton  in  1821  has  left  an  account  of 
the  Pavilion,  which  at  that  period  nobody 
need  have  blushed  for  admiring  with  all  the 
rest  of  the  world.  To  quote  Dr.  Evans  at 
length  would  be  impossible,  but  a  few  sen- 
tences will  perhaps  sufBce  to  give  a  general 
impression  of  the  style  of  his  day.  It  is  the 
inside  of  things  rather  than  the  outside  that 
he  deals  with.  "The  aerial  imagery  of  fancy, 
the  embellishments  of  fertile  invention,  pro- 
fusely described  in  the  Thousand  and  One 
Nights,  the  popular  tales  of  magic  involving 
the  enchanted  palaces  of  the  Genii,''  he  says, 
writing  of  the  Pavilion,  "fall  short  in  splen- 
dour  of    detail   to    this    scene   of   imposing 


JBaerta  in  JSrIgbton  73 

grandeiir,  to  these  beautiful  combinations 
and  effects  of  myriads  of  glittering  objects, 
in  the  plenitude  of  art  and  refinement  of 
taste.  .  .  .'' 

Any  one  of  us  who  may  have  lately  at- 
tended a  concert  at  the  Pavilion  will  hardly 
recognise  the  following  accoimt  of  the  music- 
room:  "A  dome  gilt  with  green  and  gold 
and  ornamented  with  sparkling  scales,  and 
sunflowers  which  diminish  in  size  to  the 
centre;  from  which  centre  (among  other 
things)  hangs  an  ornament  representing  in 
all  its  vivid  tints  a  sunflower,  in  all  the 
luxuriance  of  seeming  cultivation;  from  which 
ornament  again  a  glittering  pagoda  of  cut 
glass  depends,  also  a  water-lily  surrounded 
by  golden  dragons  and  enriched  by  various 
transparent  devices,  all  emanating  from  the 
heathen  mythology  of  the  Chinese.  .  .  .  The 
dome  itself,''  so  we  read,  *' appears  to  -have 
been  excavated  from  a  rock  of  solid  gold; 
it  is  supported  by  a  convex  cone,  intersecting 
itself  by  an  octagonal  base."  The  mind  of 
the  reader  is  further  dazzled  by  long  de- 
scriptions of  columns  of  crimson,  enormous 


74  JSlacftsttcft  papers 

serpents  twisted  in  their  diversity  of  colour 
and  terrific  expression,  .  .  .  blue  and  yellow 
fretwork,  rows  of  bamboo  confined  by  rib- 
bons, canopies,  suspended  lamps,  marble 
statuary  by  Westmacott  ornamented  with 
ormolu  columns,  and  finally  an  "effulgent 
mirror  encompassed  by  a  glittering  canopy." 
"This  scene  of  radiant  and  imposing  splen- 
dour," we  are  told,  *' imparts  the  highest 
credit  to  the  professional  talents  of  F.  Grace, 
Esq.,  and  his  qualified  assistants."  The 
banqueting-hall  is  described  at  equal  length. 
"A  tout-ensemble  of  matchless  beauty,  ren- 
dering words  inadequate  to  do  it  justice, 
exhibiting  grandeur  without  tawdriness,  good 
taste  as  emanating  from  intellectual  culti- 
vation; and  all  this  the  work  of  F.  Jones, 
Esq.,"  who  seems  to  have  run  a  dead 
heat  with  F.  Grace,  Esq.,  and  his  qualified 
assistants. 

Mrs.  Barbauld,  dear  woman,  has  been 
called  in  to  add  poetry  to  this  passionate 
prose : 

And,  lo!  where  Caesar  saw  with  proud  disdain 
The  wattled  hut  and  skin  of  azure  stain, 


Egerfa  in  Brtgbton  75 

Corinthian  columns  rear  their  graceful  forms, 
And  light  verandas  brave  the  wintry  storms, 
etc.  etc.  etc. 


II 


When  the  writer's  father  used  to  start 
off  for  Brighton  with  his  inkstand  and  his 
blotting-pad  and  his  gold  pen,  it  was  always 
known  that  he  meant  play  as  well  as  work. 
He  loved  his  work  and  his  play  at  Brighton 
and  the  playfellows  he  met  there.  She  can 
remember  him  standing  with  John  Leech  one 
sunshiny  morning  at  the  window  of  a  little 
groimd-floor  room  looking  towards  the  sea, 
and  watching  the  stream  of  people  as  they 
flowed  along  the  Parade.  My  father  may 
have  seen  Miss  Crawley  in  her  chair  and 
Rawdon  Crawley  and  Becky  herself  tripping 
attendance;  and  no  doubt  John  Leech  saw 
dear  Mr.  Briggs  and  his  smiling  family,  and 
the  little  Scotch  terriers,  and  those  majestic 
whiskered  beings  and  those  ladies  with  the 
funny  little  square  boots,  and  the  flowing 
ringlets  blowing  in  the  wind.  ...  I  can 
just  remember  the  two  friends  laughing  and 


76  3Blacft5tick  papers 

talking  together  as  they  stood  in  the  window, 
when  a  droll-looking  volunteer  went  by. 

I  have  often  tried  to  make  out  the  little 
lodging-house,  but  I  dare  say  it  is  gone,  and  the 
M6tropole  or  the  Grand  Hotel  or  some  ma- 
jestic emporium  is  in  the  place  where  it  stood. 

Of  an  evening,  from  our  present  windows 
in  Bedford  Square,  if  we  look  we  can  see  a 
fairy-like  illumination  flashing  out  to  sea — a 
glittering  stream  of  lights  in  bright  arcades, 
and  running  from  end  to  end  of  an  endless  pier, 
where  music  plays,  and  where  the  inhabitants 
of  Brighton  disport  themselves  when  their 
day's  work  is  over.  Alas  1  perhaps  some  of  us 
still  prefer  the  memory  of  the  old  chain-pier 
to  the  presence  of  all  these  dazzling  **  im- 
provements**— the  old  pier,  which  stood  firm 
for  so  many  years,  while  the  waves  flung  their 
spray  against  its  shiplike  spars,  all  hung  with 
seaweeds  and  tenanted  by  barnacles  enjoy- 
ing the  sweet  salt  darkness  underneath.  Up 
above,  the  old  pier  used  to  be  haunted  by 
seafaring  men  and  their  fishwives.  One  of 
these  mer-women,  who  remembered  my  father 
— ^has  he  not  written  of  the  old  chain-pier  in 


"'^•i^/ZTA.  *^''' 


^CiJilliajny  .  Makejieac^  ^  Jhnckeniu 

aji  en  Ha  borbtxAJr ,  fronh  a  nu'nuilure  pat/Ut/u/ 


jEgeria  in  Brtgbton  77 

Philip  ? — kept  her  stall  to  the  end,  till  the  last 
great  storm  came  to  sweep  the  old  sea-mark 
away.  It  was  indeed  a  haven  for  memories: 
Helen  Faucit  loved  it,  and  used  to  pace  there 
with  her  husband ;  my  father  used  to  sit  there 
smoking,  so  his  old  friend  the  fishwife  told  me. 

Miss  Fanny  Macaulay,  who  dwelt  at  Brigh- 
ton, once  said  to  me,  "People  think  I  am 
lonely  here !  Why,  the  room  is  simply  crowded 
with  the  thoughts  of  those  I  have  loved, ''  and 
so  this  garish  strand  seems  to  be  to  some  of 
us.  Beyond  the  pier,  higher  up  on  the  east 
cliff,  there  is  a  house  neither  romantic  to  look 
at  nor  marked  in  any  way,  but  as  I  pass  I 
think  of  my  father's  good  friend  and  ours,  his 
publisher,  now  gone  from  us,  who  owned  it 
once  long  ago;  and  I  remember  how  we  came 
there  after  my  father's  death  to  find  that 
friendship  which  has  never  changed — and  the 
legacy  which  true  hearts  leave,  in  turn,  to 
their  children's  children.     .     .     . 

Another  of  my  father's  old  playmates  at 
Brighton,  until  quite  lately,  still  sat  in  her 
chair  by  her  fireside,  not  far  from  **  Horizontal 
Place,"  with  her  own  memories  of  the  spot 


78  JBlacftsttcft  papers 

where  she  has  welcomed  so  many,  and  made 
them  happy  by  her  wit  and  kindness.  Her 
father,  Horace  Smith,  dwelt  at  Brighton  too, 
and  his  name  links  us  with  all  the  great  literary 
names  of  the  beginning  of  the  last  century. 
He  and  his  brother  James  knew  all  the  in- 
teresting persons  of  whom  they  wrote  in  the 
Rejected  Addresses, 

Brighton  has  scarcely  received  its  due  re- 
cognition of  late.  Miss  Crawley  and  Becky 
Sharp  and  Miss  Honeyman  and  Lady  Anne 
Newcome,  of  course,  are  all  old-established 
residents  and  patrons;  but  since  the  days 
of  Vanity  Fair  and  The  Newcomes  I  can 
hardly  remember  any  mention  of  Brighton  in 
contemporaneous  literature. 

I  feel  rather  jealous  for  Brighton !  Neither 
Dickens  nor  Bulwer  nor  Disraeli  nor  Scott  nor 
George  Eliot  nor  Kingsley  ever  sent  any  heroes 
and  heroines  to  revive  there.  Miss  Austen 
writes  of  the  comparative  merits  of  Southend 
and  Cromer,  lingers  foundly  at  Lyme,  or  in  the 
Pump  Room  at  Bath,  but  ignores  Brighthelm- 
stone,  as  it  must  have  been  still  called  in  her 
day.     Mrs.  Oliphant  goes  to  St.  Andrews  and 


Bgerfa  in  JSrtgbton  79 

the  Firth  of  Forth;  Black  floats  from  northern 
sea  to  northern  sea;  Mrs.  Gaskell  paints 
Whitby ;  Kingsley  loves  Clovelly .  Brighton  is 
ignored  by  an  ungrateful  generation  of  heroes 
and  heroines.  They  are,  of  course,  a  fastid- 
ious race.  They  like  to  break  their  hearts  in 
style,  in  beautiful  parks  or  in  lonely  crumbling 
mansions — ^not  in  packed  lodging  terraces 
with  neighbours  by  the  dozen  and  Bath- 
chairmen  for  an  audience.  They  prefer  soli- 
tude, the  midland  counties,  Scotland,  the 
Lakes,  the  Orkneys,  the  Isle  of  Man.  Brigh- 
ton has  certainly  nothing  so  delightful  to 
produce  as  that  enchanting  boat-house  to 
which  Peggotty  took  David  Copperfield  at 
Yarmouth,  but  many  a  Bleak  House  might  be 
pointed  out;  and  as  for  splendour,  Disraeli 
himself  might  not  have  disdained  the  glories 
of  the  Pavilion,  as  described  by  my  friend  and 
predecessor.  Dr.  Evans. 


Ill 


But  the  Fairy  Blackstick  does  not  greatly 
concern  herself  with  Brighton  as  it  is,  nor  even 


8o  IBlacftsticft  papers 

with  its  reminiscences,  though  they  comprise 
kings,  courts,  favourites,  and  the  Duke  of  Wel- 
Hngton  himself.  Its  adjacent  dependency  of 
Roedean  interests  her  very  much  more. 

As  she  is  too  old  to  fear  being  sent  to  school 
again  herself,  my  tutelary  Fairy  Blackstick  en- 
joys nothing  so  much  as  visiting  the  various 
seats  of  youthful  learning  and  education  which 
are  scattered  about  the  coimtry.  We  have 
just  described  her  experiences  at  St.  Andrews. 
There  is  also  this  fine  institution  for  the  bene- 
fit of  youth  upon  the  Sussex  downs  of  Roe- 
dean,  near  Brighton,  of  which  the  life  and  the 
spirit  seem  no  less  invigorating  and  reviving 
to  our  ancient  doctrinaire. 

Education,  exhausted  by  her  long  efforts, 
may  have  nodded  off,  as  the  Sleeping  Beauty 
did,  towards  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
under  the  spells  of  the  droning  wheels  of  Mrs. 
Chapone,  Hannah  More,  and  Mrs.  Trimmer. 
Then  the  great  revival  occurred,  and  Rous- 
seau and  the  Edgeworths  and  others  stepped 
forward  to  shake  up  the  sleeping  Princess  of 
Education.  Princess!  Princesses  would  be 
more  to  the  point.     They  do  not  any  longer 


jBQCVia  in  JSrigbton  8i 

belong  to  any  special  time  or  place.  Wher- 
ever one  turns  one  sees  them  rubbing  their 
beautiful  eyes.  They  are  in  the  north,  and 
on  the  southern  cliffs;  they  are  in  the  old 
collegiate  cities,  in  London  and  in  its  suburbs, 
among  green-enclosing  groves.  All  these 
Sleeping  Beauties  may  have  lain  dormant  for  a 
time;  but  lol  they  start  up  with  wide-open 
eyes  when  that  charming  prince.  Enthusiasm, 
calls  them  from  their  slumbers  with  a  kiss. 

Fairy  Blackstick  offered  to  conduct  us  to 
the  adjacent  seat  of  education  in  her  chariot, 
and  we  gladly  accepted  her  offer.  The  mists 
were  lying  on  the  hills  as  we  drove  along  the 
sea-coast,  leaving  the  crowds  behind  us;  it 
was  Saturday,  and  all  along  the  bare  cliffs 
the  holiday-makers  were  streaming  and  fol- 
lowing each  other.  The  mists  were  light  and 
vaporous,  drifting  over  the  bare  fields  and 
cliffs,  or  floating  upon  the  horizon  of  the  sea 
in  an  indescribable  fresh  sweetness.  The 
half-holiday  schoolboys  were  out  at  their 
sports,  and  parties  of  schoolgirls  from  Roedean 
were  also  out,  flying  hither  and  thither,  play- 
ing hockey  on  the  downs  in  their  dark-blue 


82  JSlacftBticft  papers 

uniforms.  The  line  of  the  cliffs  spread  wider 
as  we  climbed;  we  could  see  the  footpaths 
running  across  the  hollows  towards  Ovingdean 
and  Rottingdean,  and  the  cabbage-fields  on 
the  slopes,  and  a  scattered  house  or  two,  all 
gently  touched  and  softened  by  the  haze ;  and 
every  now  and  then,  where  the  veils  were  torn, 
the  sea  came  swimming  before  our  eyes  in 
pools  and  vast  lakes  enclosed  by  vapours. 

Some  little  way  ofE,  also  tempered  by  a  sil- 
very veil,  rose  a  huge  pile  of  buildings,  like  any 
one  of  those  bastions  one  may  have  sometimes 
seen  in  Austria  or  Germany — some  Moravian 
settlement  perhaps,  standing  on  its  cliff,  with 
belfries  and  clock  towers  and  windows  upon 
windows.  These  windows,  which  outside  seem 
too  many  for  architectural  effect,  inside  give 
light  and  air  to  two  hundred  maidens,  asleep 
and  awake. 

The  particular  Sleeping  Princess  of  Edu- 
cation who  came  to  life  in  this  charming  spot 
certainly  foimd  herself  in  delightful  surround- 
ings when  she  opened  her  eyes  upon  this 
horizon,  upon  the  flights  and  terraces  and 
courts  all  looking  seawards;  while  within,  the 


Bgerta  in  Brtgbton  83 

great  halls,  the  schoolrooms  and  laboratories, 
the  gymnasitims  and  passages,  lead  from  wing 
to  wing,  and — thanks  to  the  innumerable 
windows — from  cheerful  light  to  light. ^ 

Every  comer  of  the  great  building  speaks  of 
sunshine  and  freshness.  And  besides  all  this 
there  is  the  inspiriting  sight  of  the  spreading 
sea-line  to  the  south,  and  of  the  downs  stretch- 
ing north  and  east,  and  then,  far  away  towards 
the  sunset,  Brighton  with  its  spires  and 
pinnacles.  Sometimes  the  sea  from  Roedean 
looks  almost  like  a  living  thing,  heaving  and 
throbbing,  and  with  dark  markings  and  a 
strange  dazzle  of  white  flame  breaking  from 
the  far  horizon.  On  this  particular  day  of 
which  I  write  it  was  vague,  soft,  mystical, 
with  spring  in  the  air  and  birds  on  the  wing. 

I  have  always  liked  the  story  of  Roedean — 
of  the  seven  sisters  who  founded  the  schools 
and  raised  the  beautiful  palace  in  which  this 
particular  Princess  of  Education  awoke.  Af- 
ter long  years  of  constancy  and  work,  with 


»  There  are  four  great  houses,  all  communicating,  each 
under  a  different  regent.  Each  house  contains  about  fifty- 
girls  and  has  its  separate  staff  of  mistresses  and  servants. 


84  JSlacftsticft  papers 

hope  and  good  sense  and  a  company  to  back 
them,  they  raised  the  palace  for  this  Princess 
Egeria,  so  I  shall  call  her,  to  rule,  with  her 
following  of  English  girls.  **  Egeria  was  a 
prophetic  nymph  or  divinity,**  says  the 
dictionary,  **an  instructress  invoked  as  the 
giver  of  life.*'  All  of  which  is  extremely 
appropriate  to  the  schools  of  Roedean.  The 
air  comes  straight  from  the  waves  to  the  high 
cliffs  where  the  two  hundred  maidens  are 
imbibing  instruction  and  fresh  air  with  every 
breath. 

I  had  heard  at  St.  Andrews,  first  of  all,  how 
much  the  young  students  of  to-day  owe  to 
Mrs.  Garrett  Anderson,  who  came  away  in  her 
youth,  fresh  from  Cambridge  honours,  with 
new  and  healthy  views  of  what  education 
ought  to  be,  not  only  for  the  mind  but 
for  the  body,  and  who  immediately  began 
to  preach  the  excellent  doctrines  of  judi- 
cious hours,  of  exercise,  of  oxygen  and 
hydrogen,  the  uses  of  amusement  as  well 
as  of  hard  work;  of  thoroughness  and  good 
teaching.  And  with  what  success  she 
preached    any    one    may    judge    who  looks 


iBQCVia  in  JSrlgbton  85 

about,  with  or  without  the  guidance  of  my 
tutelary  Fairy  Blackstick. 

Schools  founded  upon  such  lines  prosper 
because  they  are  schools  of  common  sense ;  the 
children's  happy  health  is  considered  as  well  as 
their  vigorous  mental  progress. 

"It  is  just  tea-time/'  said  Egeria,  who  had 
come  out  to  welcome  the  Fairy  Blackstick; 
"  come  and  see  the  girls, ''  and  she  led  the  way. 
It  was  pleasant  to  follow  her  and  also  to  real- 
ise the  young  students  talking,  drinking  tea, 
occupied  by  their  various  amusements;  in  li- 
braries, gymnasiums,  play-rooms;  being  Sat- 
urday afternoon  the  school-rooms  only  were 
empty. 

"  There  is  but  one  question  I  should  like  to 
ask  you,"  said  Fairy  Blackstick,  a  little 
gravely — she  was  pulling  down  her  veil  and 
preparing  to  take  leave:  ''When  your  girls 
come  away,  returning  to  their  own  homes,  to 
the  outer  world  where  most  assuredly  every- 
thing is  not  arranged  solely  for  their  conven- 
ience, are  you  not  a  little  afraid  for  them?" 

"Afraid  of  what?''  said  Egeria. 


86  3BlackBttcft  papers 

"Of  their  too  great  expectations,"  said 
Blackstick,  "and  consequent  disappoint- 
ment." 

We  were  crossing  the  courtyard  as  she 
spoke,  and  we  happened  to  be  passing  an  open 
window  whence  came  a  sudden  delightful  burst 
of  laughter  from  some  half-dozen  maidens 
who  were  sitting  round  a  table  drinking  tea. 
It  was  merry,  charming  laughter  like  a  tune. 
**That/'  said  Egeria,  smiling,  "is  as  good  an 
answer  as  any  I  can  give  you.  Youth  is 
light-hearted;  it  accepts  the  experiences  of 
life  as  they  come,  not  the  less  easily  because 
of  a  good  education!  You  take  things  too 
gravely,  dear  Blackstick."  And  then  we 
drove  down  the  hill  towards  Brighton  once 
more,  while  Egeria  waved  farewell  from  her 
high  terrace. 


No.  VI 

NOHANT  IN  1874 
FRONTISPIECE 

FONTAINEBLEAU,  Juue  I,  I901. 

It  seems  a  charming  natural  accompaniment 
to  George  Sand's  books  and  letters  to  be  reading 
them  among  the  very  scenes  she  describes,  to  the 
pleasant  echo  of  the  friendly  French  voices.  We 
•find  a  gentle,  merry  people  here  at  our  country 
restaurant,  spending  their  Sundays  under  the 
trees — not  wanting  anything  but  a  little  sunshine 
to  quicken  them  into  gaiety.  The  inn  stands 
between  the  forest  and  the  river.  Birds  and 
insects  are  flying,  winds  stir  the  leaves,  fishes 
leap  from  the  water,  the  great  stream  flows  past 
carrying  its  rafts,  its  steady  cargo.  People  sit 
in  the  shade  watching  the  currents  as  they  run 
towards  the  bridge,  and  past  the  woodyard  where 

87 


88  3Blacftstfcft  papers 

the  children  are  at  play.  On  the  opposite  banks 
are  wide  green  meadows  sprinkled  with  old  farms 
and  ancient  dovecotes  and  clumps  of  tall  trees. 

Our  hostel  is  at  the  entrance  of  the  great  forest 
of  Fontainehleau,  and  stands  at  the  gates  of  its 
vast  cathedral  with  cloisters  and  columns  of 
Ionic  beeches  and  Doric  pines,  and  a  choir  of 
sweet  birds  still  singing;  the  incense  rises  from  a 
thousand  aromas ,  and  there  is  a  mosaic  under- 
foot of  dry  leaves  and  fragrant  cones  and  twigs 
and  -fine  grass. 

All  sorts  of  people  stop  at  the  welcoming  court- 
yard of  the  little  restaurant — workmen,  country 
people,  as  well  as  the  smart  folks  from  the  town. 
Various  attractive  notices  are  painted  up  upon 
the  walls  of  the  old  house,  ''Friture,''  *' Mate- 
lottes,''  and  so  forth.  Soldiers  straggle  in, 
babies  arrive  by  omnibus  with  a  nurse  in  charge 
— parents  follow,  exhausted  from  long  expedi- 
tions on  bicycles.  They  embrace  their  children 
and  call  for  lemonade.  These  are  inhabitants 
of  Fontainebleau,  for  the  most  part,  and  the 
officers  with  their  wives  from  the  great  military 
academy  there.  Then  more  soldiers  come  up; 
a  party   of   them   arrives   in   a   boat,    rowing 


laobant  in  1874  89 

atrociously  and  roaring  with  laughter;  as  they 
land  they  salute  their  domestic  commanding 
o-fjicers  and  pass  on  to  the  outer  kitchen  of  the 
inn,  where  a  sort  of  second  table  is  spread. 

Louise  and  Marie,  who  wait  upon  thirty 
people  at  once,  -fly  hither  and  thither  with  flying 
white  streamers,  and  then,  at  an  emergency  per- 
haps, comes  his  honour  the  host  from  the  house, 
followed  by  his  man  in  shirt-sleeves y  carrying 
innumerable  bottles  of  white  wine  and  red  wine 
of  the  best,  for  the  guests.  One  and  another  of 
these,  having  ended  their  meal,  stroll  away; 
couples  are  to  be  seen  in  the  distance  crossing 
the  bridge  or  wandering  off  into  the  forest  glades; 
the  children  and  nurses,  after  throwing  many 
stones  into  the  water,  depart  with  the  last  seven 
o'clock  omnibus;  the  people  who  still  remain  sit 
peacefully  enjoying  the  evening  and  watching 
the  sunset.  There  is  one  young  soldier  with  a 
pretty  tenor  voice  who  sings  to  his  companions 
over  the  lemonade  and  absinthe  bottles,  long 
interminable  ditties  which  last  on  from  daylight 
into  twilight;  from  twilight  into  starlight  we 
ourselves — a.m  and  p.m. — also  dine  off  fritures 
and  stewed  fruits  and  vegetables,  we  go  for  a 


90  3Blacftsttcft  papers 

drivey  we  return,  the  voice  is  singing  still,  and 
the  praises  of  "  charmante  Gabrielle'*  are  flowing 
on. 

Late  in  the  evening,  when  ease  has  come  to  the 
stress  and  heat,  when  more  stars  have  risen, 
dusky  forms  are  still  in  front  of  the  inn,  looking 
like  shadows  among  the  trees  of  ''la  Terrace''  as 
they  call  the  little  gravelled  plantation  where  the 
acacias  and  chairs  and  tables  grow  alternately. 
Three  m£n  in  the  road  are  playing  a  game  in 
the  deepening  twilight.  They  can  hardly  see, 
but  they  go  on  by  starlight,  exclaiming,  measur- 
ing their  distances,  and  crouching  over  their 
points;  an  old  woman  comes  down  the  steps  from 
the  lighted  kitchen.  ''Eh,  la  mhre  Simonne,  oil 
allez-vous  f  ' '  the  gamblers  cry  hospitably.  Then 
"la  mkre  Simonne''  stands  by,  also  absorbed 
in  the  fortunes  of  the  game.  Darkness  has 
fallen  on  the  day  and  on  the  hills  beyond  the 
river  where  one  or  two  lights  are  scattered.  I, 
who  had  been  reading  one  of  her  books  and  a 
book  lately  written  about  her,  could  almost  im- 
agine George  Sand  at  work  writing  through  the 
night  by  one  of  these  faint  lights;  for  I  remem- 
ber that  special   time  when  she  came  to  Fon- 


laobant  in  X874  91 

tainebleau  alone  with  her  son,  as  a  hoy.  All 
day  they  wandered  in  the  woods  collecting  his 
favourite  insects  and  beetles  and  plants;  half 
the  night  she  sat  on  while  he  slept,  writing 
romantic  novels  to  earn  the  money  to  pay  for 
their  holiday  journey. 


My  little  dissertation  concerns  the  book  I 
read  at  Fontainebleau  rather  than  Fontaine- 
bleau  itself;  it  was  the  story  of  the  mistress 
of  Nohant  in  1874.  She  was  an  old  woman 
then,  and  the  disastrous  storm  of  middle-life 
had  swept  out  of  her  existence.  She  was 
calm  and  wise  and  beneficent  as  in  her  prime. 
No  one  has  ever  written  so  delightfully  of  old 
age  as  George  Sand  has  done  herself  in  her 
writing  and  in  her  daily  actions  too. 

The  art  of  getting  old  is,  I  think,  specially 
understood  in  France.  With  her,  it  was 
something  more,  it  was  a  ripening  and  chang- 
ing, a  progress  to  the  very  last.  It  is  an  ease 
and  help  to  one^s  mind  to  read  of  George  Sand, 
in  her  later  days,  in  her  Berrichon  home;  to 


92  J5lacftBticft  papers 

read  her  noble  correspondence,  and  the  story 
of  Nohant  and  of  its  inhabitants,  of  the  cheer- 
ful and  talkative  guests  who  arrive  to  share 
its  hospitalities;  the  neighbours  from  La 
Ch^tre,  the  great  people  from  Paris — ^the 
great  musicians,  the  men  of  letters,  the  men  of 
newspapers  and  of  books.  As  one  reads,  all 
the  visionary  company  seems  to  surround  one. 
One  can  almost  hear  the  eager  voices,  the 
strains  of  music  (and  what  music!);  one  can 
almost  breathe  the  whiffs  of  the  cigarettes 
from  the  garden  as  well  as  the  fragrant  scent  of 
the  pine  leaves,  and  hear  the  deep  tones  of  the 
chatelaine  as  she  converses  with  her  somewhat 
noisy  visitors.^  Her  son  Maurice,  the  natural- 
ist, is  a  charming  figure  as  he  comes  strolling 
in — he  also  must  have  had  a  deep  voice  like 
his  mother. 

All  the  roads  in  the  province  seem  to  have 
led  to  Nohant,  to  judge  by  the  company  it 
kept.  One  of  them  passes  by  an  old  inn  where 
all  night  long,  as  I  have  heard,  the  carts  go 


» There  is  a  wonderful  description  in  her  Impressions  of 
Liszt  playing,  and  the  friends  talking  and  listening  without 
in  the  garden. 


flobant  in  1874  93 

rumbling  by  to  the  neighbouring  market,  and 
where  the  memory  of  the  lady  of  Nohant  is 
green.  Two  travellers  who  spent  the  night 
there  not  long  ago  can  tell  of  the  cheerful 
legends  which  are  still  so  vivid  in  remem- 
brance that  they  seem  to  belong  to  to-day — 
of  the  champagne  and  pasties  sent  for  from 
the  Chateau  in  haste  to  entertain  the  unex- 
pected guests;  and  how  when  Alexandre 
Dumas  and  Prince  Napoleon  were  coming 
Madame  Sand  always  summoned  the  hair- 
dresser to  dress  her  hair — never  at  other 
times.  Best  of  all,  there  is  still  the  grateful 
memory  of  her  unending  helpful  kindness  and 
beneficence  to  all  the  people  round  about  her 
home — ^this  home  where  she  dwelt  from  her 
childhood,  where,  when  her  life  was  ended, 
she  lay  down  to  die. 

This  little  book  of  memoirs,  George  Sand, 
by  Henri  Amic,  gives  a  sketch  of  the  great 
writer  in  her  home.  Nohant  is  a  household 
word  to  many  of  us,  but  it  comes  before  us 
still  more  clearly  in  M.  Amic's  pages.  We  can 
see  the  long  white  road  leading  from  La 
Ch^tre ;  the  villagers  are  at  their  cottage  doors 


94  J3lacl?0ttcfi  papers 

as  the  young  man  drives  up  to  the  gates  of  the 
country-house,  those  gates  which  open  so 
hospitably.  As  one  puts  the  volume  aside  it 
is  more  like  remembering  a  little  journey  one 
has  taken,  instead  of  a  book  one  has  read. 
Henri  Amic,  as  a  very  young  man,  in  1875, 
wrote  a  letter  to  George  Sand;  she  answered 
with  kindness  inviting  him  to  her  country- 
house,  and  the  grateful  visitor's  remembrance 
of  it  all  resulted  in  this  charming  sketch  of 
her  in  her  old  age.     .     .     . 

We  are  not  all  made  in  a  lofty  mould;  for 
many  of  us  these  small  details  and  note-books, 
this  yoimg  man's  treasured  collection  of  affec- 
tionate remembrance,  will  give  a  more  definite 
impression  of  the  latter  days  of  George  Sand's 
life  than  many  a  more  important  treatise,  up- 
on the  influence  shall  we  say  of  the  romantic 
school;  upon  hereditary  genius,  upon  impres- 
sionability, upon  esthetics,  and  the  paradox  of 
daily  life. 

In  this  illustrated  pamphlet  (it  is  scarcely 
more)  Madame  Sand  is  made  to  talk;  her  say- 
ings are  recalled,  she  sits  familiarly  with  her 
parasol  under  the  big  cedar-tree,  with  the 


laobant  in  1874  95 

pleasant  old  country-house  beyond;  we  have 
the  illustrations  to  look  at  as  well  as  the 
printed  matter;  there  are  the  shutters,  there 
is  the  terrace,  the  perron,  the  doors  and  win- 
dows wide  open  to  the  careless  ordered  garden. 
One  seems  to  be  at  home  in  the  shade  of  the 
great  trees  growing  in  the  pathway.  These 
French  country-houses  and  homesteads  are 
different  from  English  homes;  with  us  places 
are  apt  to  turn  sad  and  mouldy  when  they 
are  not  trim  and  well  kept;  French  country- 
houses  may  be  safely  left  to  their  own  devices.^ 
The  lawns  may  be  uneven,  the  beds  may  be 
choked  with  tangled  growth,  nasturtium  and 
marguerite  and  dahlia  straggling  wildly,  but 
there  is  none  of  the  desolate  sadness  which 
often  lurks  among  our  tangles.  In  the  golden 
foreign  light  the  happy  glory  of  the  land  and 
the  sky  reigns  triumphant,  quite  independent 
of  the  gardener's  art. 

»  Here  is  one  of  George  Sand's  descriptions  from  her 
window.  "When  I  awoke  at  five  this  morning,"  she  says, 
"the  garden  was  still  asleep,  awakening  from  dreams  but 
silent  in  the  early  mist  and  not  yet  scenting  the  air.  The 
sky  was  awake,  palest  incandescent  lights  were  vibrating, 
a  slender  crescent  moon  with  silver  line  hung  before  the 
golden  gates  of  the  morning.  ..." 


96  JSlacftstlcft  papers 

II 

Coming  along  in  his  country  carriage  M. 
Henri  Amic  had  talked  to  the  people  by  the 
way.  "  C'est  la  bont6  meme,  la  bont6  du  bon 
Dieu,  quoi,"  says  one  woman,  a  coimtry- 
woman  in  a  Berrichon  cap,  speaking  of  "not* 
Dame,"  as  she  calls  Madame  Sand.  *'Des 
Femmes  comme  ga — le  moule  en  est  bris6,  on 
n'en  fait  plus,'*  she  says.  Henri  Amic  notes 
it  all  down  along  with  his  first  sight  of  the 
house  among  the  elms  and  walnut-trees,  and 
the  charming  welcome  he  receives.  He  is  let 
in  by  a  maid  in  her  peasant's  dress,  who  takes 
him  through  the  dining-room  into  the  drawing- 
room,  and  almost  immediately  he  describes 
hearing  the  vibrating  tones  of  a  voice  outside, 
and  the  door  opens  to  let  in  the  two  little  girls 
and  their  grandmother.  The  young  man  is 
received  at  once  as  a  friend;  taken  out  into 
the  garden,  while  Madame  Sand  talks  to  him 
in  that  eloquent  voice,  leading  the  way  tinder 
the  great  cedar  in  front  of  the  house  and  along 
the  avenue  of  apple-trees,  where  the  fieurs 
vivaces,   as    he    calls    them,   are  growing  in 


laobant  in  1874  97 

abundance.  Of  course  Amic  has  brought  a 
play  in  manuscript  to  read  to  her.  Poor 
Madame  Sand,  who  has  her  own  unique  ex- 
perience of  manuscript,^  suggests  he  should 
defer  the  reading,  warns  him  that  writing  for 
the  stage  is  the  most  difficult  of  all  writing. 
"Plays  depend  on  their  interpreters,*'  she 
says;  "they  depend  on  the  public  as  much  as 
on  the  author,  and  the  public  changes  its 
mind,  its  impression,  its  fashion,  and  sym- 
pathies. ' '  Then  she  goes  on  to  talk — and  how 
well  she  talks.  She  tells  the  young  man  not 
to  be  surprised  if  he  does  not  succeed  at  first. 
"  Literature  is  nothing  else  than  the  history  of 
life  itself,"  she  says;  "you  are  very  young  to 
know  that  history,"  she  adds.  Once  she 
wrote  that  when  she  died  she  hoped  to  go  to 
some  place  where  there  was  neither  reading 
nor  writing,  but  this  must  have  been  a  passing 
phase — to  her  reading  and  writing  were  feel- 
ing, were  uttering,  were  a  life  within  a  life. 

To  return  to  our  traveller.     At  six  o'clock 
the  dinner-bell  rings,  and  the  little  company 

»  "Your  MS.  is  No.  152  in  order,"  she  writes  somewhere 
to  some  importunate  poet. 
7 


98  Blacftsticft  papers 

sits  down  to  a  cheerful  meal;  one  of  Madame 
Sand's  old  friends,  M.  Edmond  Plauchut,  is 
there,  the  editor  of  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes, 
**Each  one  of  us  is  happy  to  be  present,'* 
says  the  author,  "  and  this  tranquil  gaiety  is 
delightful." 

French  habits  are  not  like  ours.  After 
dinner  we  read  that  they  all  play  at  hide-and- 
seek,  etc.,  and,  after  the  children's  bed-time, 
at  four-handed  dominoes.  When  Amic  leaves 
he  is  full  of  regret.  "I  see  it  all  before  me 
long  after  I  have  left,"  he  writes;  "the  dear, 
big  drawing-room  with  the  long  piano,  the  two 
old  armchairs  hung  with  cretonne  on  either 
side  of  the  chimney-piece.  The  great  table 
in  the  centre  with  the  seat  always  especially 
kept  for  Madame  Sand — and  there  are  the 
walls  hung  with  pictures,  Aurora  of  Koenigs- 
mark  and  Maurice  de  Saxe,  Dupin  de  Fran- 
^ueil  and  Maurice  Sand.  When  I  leave  all 
this  my  gratitude  reaches  from  the  dear  hosts 
to  the  things  which  surround  them. " 

It  is  interesting  to  be  made  acquainted  with 
all  the  people  who  lived  at  Nohant  in  1875. 
There  is  Lina,  the  devoted  daughter-in-law — a 


laobant  In  1874  99 

daughter  of  Calamatta,  the  artist  and  en- 
graver; there  is  Maurice  Sand,  the  other 
master  of  the  house — slow,  brilliant,  persistent, 
and  affectionate,  without  great  ambition; 
there  are  the  children  Lolo  and  Titine,  who 
mean  so  much  to  their  grandmother  and  to 
their  parents,  "those  flowers"  of  whom  she 
loves  to  write.  Then  we  read  of  the  old 
servant,  la  m^re  Thomas,  La  T ornate  as 
they  call  her.  You  are  introduced  into  the 
old  salon  with  its  polished  floors  and  the 
square  of  carpet  under  the  big  round  table, 
round  which  the  family  and  the  friends  sit 
of  an  evening.  There  is  George  Sandys  special 
place  at  the  table,  and  the  two  pianos  upon 
which  Liszt  and  Chopin  must  have  played  in 
turn,  and  the  pictures  on  the  walls  in  their 
old-fashioned  frames.  The  old  clock  still 
seems  to  be  ticking  out  of  the  times  of  the 
Louises,  of  Marie  Antoinette,  of  the  Great 
Terror,  of  Napoleon  and  the  returning  Bour- 
bons. Through  all  catastrophes  Nohant  has 
stood  firm,  sheltering  the  descendants  of  that 
charming  old  survivor  of  monarchic  times, 
Monsieur     Dupin    de    Frangueil    at    whose 


loo  JSlacftsticft  papers 

death  his  widow  had  come  hither  with 
her  only  son,  who  was  the  first  Maurice — the 
father  of  George  Sand. 

So  much  has  been  said  about  Madame  Dupin 
de  Frangueil,  the  grandmother,  and  about  her 
very  varied  ancestors,  Aurora  of  Koenigsmark 
and  the  marshals  and  the  kings,  and  the  danc- 
ing ladies,  George  Sand's  great-grandmothers, 
that  it  is  needless  to  enter  into  it  all  once 
more;  but  when  one  thinks  of  this  remarkable 
woman  of  our  own  day  ruling  her  strange 
court,  it  is  impossible  to  ignore  Marshal  Saxe 
and  King  Augustus  altogether,  and  the  many 
extraordinary  people  from  whom  Aurore 
Dupin  descended.  Frangueil,  her  agreeable 
grandfather,  figures  in  all  the  memoirs  of  his 
time,  and  he  had  a  servant,  a  sort  of  attend- 
ant secretary,  of  the  name  of  Jean  Jacques 
Rousseau,  who  writes  in  his  memoirs  that 
he  was  dismissed  from  this  situation  for 
stealing  ribbon.  Madame  Sand  told  Henri 
Amic  that  she  had  heard  from  her  grand- 
mother that  this  was  a  pure  invention  of  Jean 
Jacques's  own  imagining — ^so  Monsieur  de 
Frangueil  himself  had  told  his  wife. 


•Wobant  in  1874  loi 

In  the  beginning  of  Karenine's  book  about 
George  Sand  there  is  a  charming  frontispiece 
of  Aurore  Dupin  as  a  child,  from  a  pastel  done 
at  the  time.  It  is  the  portrait  of  an  irresistible 
little  girl,  with  dark  eyes,  thoughtful  looks; 
simple,  wondering,  wise,  no  wonder  that  child 
grew  to  be  a  genius,  with  such  charming  signs 
of  the  future  already  marked  upon  her  baby 
face. 

Amic  gives  a  picture  of  George  Sand  in  early 
middle  life.  It  is  signed  Calamatta,  and  dated 
1840.  This  is  certainly  also  a  very  striking 
portrait.  It  represents  a  force  rather  than  a 
woman,  and  gives  the  impression  of  a  fantastic 
person,  as  people  are  indeed  when  they  have 
been  set  aloof  and  apart  from  the  rest  of  the 
world.  George  Sand  wears  a  loose  dress  with 
big  sleeves,  like  a  nun's,  an  odd  head-dress  of 
falling  ribbons  fastened  round  her  head — it 
was  a  fashion  of  the  time — a  kerchief  is  crossed 
upon  her  breast,  she  has  a  ring  upon  her  fore- 
finger, like  one  of  Holbein's  ladies.  She  is 
looking  beyond  you.  Oddly  enough,  something 
of  this  reserve,  this  suggestion  of  immunity 
from  life's  commonplace,  has  now  and  again 


I02  aeiacftsttc!?  papers 

struck  me  in  some  of  Madame  Sand's  old 
acquaintances,  in  people  who  belonged  to  her 
influence  rather  than  to  her  companionship. 
They  had  and  have  a  conviction,  a  certain 
poignant  style,  every  word  and  look  suggested 
a  fact,  and  not  an  epigram  only  as  now. 


Ill 


The  only  time  the  writer  ever  saw  Madame 
Sand  she  gave  her  the  impression  of  a  sort  of 
sphinx  in  a  black  silk  dress.  Her  black  hair 
shone  dully  in  the  light  as  she  sat  motionless, 
her  eyes  were  fire,  it  was  a  dark  face,  a  dark 
figure  in  the  front  of  a  theatre  box.  Two  men 
were  sitting  behind  her — I  remember  the  cold, 
unemotional,  almost  reluctant  salutation  she 
gave  in  return  to  Mrs.  Sartoris's  gracious  and 
animated  greeting.  This  was  my  only  sight  of 
that  woman  of  genius,  of  that  multitude  of 
women  whose  acquaintance  I  only  seem  to  be 
making  at  last.  I  have  always  realised  that 
my  meeting  with  George  Sand  came  about  not 
when  I  saw  her,  not  even  when  I  was  reading 
her  books,  but  suddenly  one  day  when  I  shut 


laobanttn  1874  103 

one  up.  We  were  passing  through  a  lonely 
green  valley,  rock-sprinkled,  ivy-grown,  cross- 
ed by  rushing  streams — it  had  been  there  upon 
the  page — ^suddenly  a  newly  realised  sense  of 
her  fellowship  with  nature  and  natural  things 
was  revealed.  I  was  somehow  conscious  that 
this  peace  and  utter  satisfaction  I  was  myself 
feeling  came  from  her,  in  some  mysterious  way, 
and  I  seemed  to  hear  something  like  the  echo 
of  a  psalm  which  she  had  sung. 

Many  people  have  said  that  Consuelo  was 
drawn  from  Mrs.  Sartoris;  others  have  christ- 
ened Madame  Pauline  Viardot  Consuelo.  I 
once  asked  this  latter  lady  about  George  Sand. 
** Everything  has  been  already  said,"  she  an- 
swered, **Tout  a  6t6  dit;  mais  ce  que  Ton  ne 
dira  jamais  assez,  c'est  combien  elle  6tait 
bonne.  Elle  6tait  bonne,  bonne,  bonne." 
This  particular  Consuelo  went  on  to  say  that 
she  had  only  known  George  Sand  in  her  later 
life ;  it  was  she  who  had  rendered  her  one  great 
and  special  service  for  which  she  should  ever 
be  grateful.  Madame  Sand  had  been  the 
person  to  suggest  and  bring  about  her  happy 
marriage  with  M.  Viardot. 


I04  JBlacftBttcft  papers 

On  one  occasion — so  Mrs.  Kemble  used  to 
tell  us — Mrs.  Sartoris  called  on  George  Sand. 
Mrs.  Kemble  asked  her  sister  with  some  in- 
terest what  had  happened,  what  Madame 
Sand  had  said,  and  what  she  was  like.  The 
younger  sister  laughed.  **She  was  very  ve- 
hement, very  dictatorial,  very  contradictory; 
in  short,  very  like  yourself,  Fanny.'*  But 
this  can  only  have  been  a  joke,  for  the  two 
women  were  of  different  elements  and  worlds 
apart.  Mrs.  Kemble  had  humour,  George 
Sand  was  absolutely  without  humour.  Would 
that  that  saving  grace  had  been  there  to 
rescue  her  from  the  exuberances  of  romance. 
Balzac's  description  of  her,  after  one  of  the 
great  earthquakes  of  her  life,  alone  in  a  big 
room  at  Nohant,  with  pretty  yellow  slippers, 
smart  stockings,  red  pantaloons,  and  a  double 
chin,  sitting  smoking  in  a  big  chair,  gives  one 
an  impression  of  some  deadly  dull  Bohemia 
which  is  odd  and  jarring.  "She  has  been  a 
year  at  Nohant  alone,  and  very  sad,'*  he 
writes.  "She  is  working  enormously,  she 
leads  something  the  life  I  lead,"  says  Balzac; 
"she  goes  to  bed  at  six  in  the  morning  and 


•Robant  in  1874  105 

rises  at  midday — I  go  to  bed  at  six  and  rise 
at  midnight.  Then  we  sit  talking  through  the 
night,  taking  the  position  to  which  each  feels 
entitled.  *Je  causais  avec  un  camarade,'  he 
says,  'elle  a  de  hautes  vertus,  de  ces  vertus 
que  la  soci^te  prend  au  rebours.'  We  dis- 
cussed everything  seriously,  with  good  faith, 
with  the  candour  and  the  conscience  worthy 
of  great  shepherds  who  are  leading  flocks  of 
men.  [This  seems  to  have  been  their  genuine 
conviction.]  .  .  .  She  is  an  excellent  mother ; 
she  is  adored  by  her  children,  but  she  dresses 
her  daughter  Solange  as  a  little  boy,  which  is 
not  well.  She  smokes  unceasingly;  she  has 
been  the  dupe  of  others ;  she  is  of  those  who  are 
powerful  at  home  and  in  personal  influence  and 
understanding,  and  yet  who  are  doomed  to  be 
taken  in  again  and  again.  I  am  convinced 
that  she  drew  her  own  self  in  the  Princesse  in 
the  Secretaire  Intime.  She  knows  and  she 
says  of  herself  that  which  I  have  always 
thought  without  telling  her,  that  she  has 
neither  strength  of  conception  nor  the  gift  of 
construction,  neither  unerring  truth  nor  pa- 
thos; but  that,  without  knowing  the  French 


io6  aBlacft6ttcft  papers 

language,  she  has  style.  She  takes — as  I  do 
— celebrity  as  a  joke,  and  she  despises  the 
public,  whom  she  calls  *jumentoM" 

After  his  visit  to  Nohant,  Balzac *s  relations 
became  more  and  more  friendly  with  George 
Sand;  an  interesting  correspondence  followed, 
each  writer  acknowledging  the  merit  of  the 
other.  When  Balzac  died,  George  Sand  wrote 
a  special  notice,  which  was  published  as  a 
preface  to  his  completed  works  in  1855. 

Browning  once  gave  me  a  striking  account 
of  George  Sand,  whom  he  had  seen  just  after 
the  Revolution  in  '48,  when  men's  heads  were 
failing  them,  and  their  hearts  too.  He  de- 
scribed a  little  procession  of  bewildered  and 
almost  frantic  patriots  coming  to  her  for  help, 
advice,  money;  they  were  a  wild  set,  so  he 
described  them.  She,  on  the  contrary,  sat 
there  calm,  business-like,  collected,  giving  her 
whole  attention  to  each  in  turn,  sending  this 
one  to  England,  that  one  to  Switzerland,  find- 
ing funds,  good  coimsel,  good  hope  for  one  after 
another — her  letters  to  Prince  Napoleon,  pray- 
ing for  remission  of  sentence  for  the  con- 
demned, are  in   themselves   a   noble   monu- 


laobant  in  1874  107 

ment,  indeed,  of  courage,  of  eloquence,  of 
faithful  charity. 

I  once  saw  in  Paris,  at  the  school  of  the 
Beaux  Arts,  an  exhibition  of  the  portraits  of 
the  last  century,  which  spoke  to  the  imagina- 
tion, for  the  voices  were  hardly  silent,  and  the 
faces  were  still  vivid  in  the  mind  of  the  elders 
of  this  generation.  We  had  come  along  the 
quay  with  its  absorbing  sights,  by  the  flowing 
river  carrying  its  many  boats  and  steamers ;  we 
had  turned  away  from  the  delightful  green  vista 
of  parks,  palaces,  and  shining  domes,  from  the 
old  bookstalls,  and  the  incantations  of  shining 
bric-k-brac,  and  come  into  halls  consecrated, 
as  I  have  said,  by  the  steps  of  the  generations 
which  had  but  just  passed  away  from  it  all. 

Among  the  pictures  were  three  sketches 
which  specially  attracted  me — ^portraits  of 
Paganini,  George  Sand,  and  Balzac — almost 
starting  from  the  frames,  so  vividly  did  they 
exist  for  the  onlooker. 

Paganini 's  was  a  masterpiece.  You  saw  a 
genius  on  fire,  so  to  say,  possessed  by  his  pas- 
sion of  music,  actually  making  that  passion- 
ate vibration  which  entranced  his  hearers;  he 


io8  35lacft0ticft  papers 

gave  one  the  impression  of  a  man  playing 
himself  to  death.  The  little  sketch  of  George 
Sand,  with  her  great  eyes  and  her  oval  heavy 
face,  was  less  characteristic,  but  it  was  the 
sibyl  quiescent,  and  if  she  would  but  look  up, 
we  feel  that  we  could  understand  her  oracle 
better.  And  Balzac,  in  his  dressing-gown,  ro- 
mantic, massive,  ugly,  and  magnificent,  is  a 
revelation  to  a  bewildered  reader  who  knows 
not  how  much  to  believe,  how  much  to  wonder, 
as  he  reads. 

I  once  heard  a  brilliant  French  woman, 
speaking  of  George  Sand,  cry  out:  "Yes,  she 
writes  admirably  of  peasant  life,  but  it  is  like 
describing  a  farm  without  the  manure;  it  is 
peasant  life  on  the  stage,  adapted  for  genteel 
noses.** 

When  one  thinks  of  the  talented  authors  who 
devote  themselves  to  describing  dung-heaps 
one  feels  in  some  charity  with  George  Sand. 


IV 


Henri  Amic  was  the  friend  of  a  later  time, 
when  all  the  mad  storms  and  reckless,    de- 


laobant  in  1874  109 

sperate  delusions  were  over.  He  was  fortu- 
nate, for  he  came  in  for  the  calm  end  of  the  long, 
generous,  ugly  woven  drama  of  her  life.  He 
not  only  went  to  Nohant,  he  used  often  to 
call  upon  Madame  Sand  in  her  apartment  in 
Paris.  She  liked  the  farther  shores  of  the 
Seine,  where  she  always  lived  when  in  town — 
the  Quai  Voltaire,  the  garden  of  the  Luxem- 
bourg— ^no  wonder  those  ancient  quarters  at- 
tracted her;  they  always  seem  to  be  the  real 
Paris,  where  its  real  heart  beats;  the  new 
boulevards  and  the  Bois  de  Boulogne  are  but 
suburbs,  overflowings  from  the  old  city. 
When  we,  too,  made  a  pilgrimage  to  George 
Sand's  old  home  we  drove  up  the  street  of  the 
little  stream,  the  Rue  du  Bac,  with  the  fanci- 
ful shops  on  either  side:  the  old  book-shops 
and  print-shops,  the  marts  for  ancient  furni- 
ture, those  strange  warehouses  where  saints 
are  sold  in  pairs,  and  angels  by  the  half-dozen 
with  golden  wings,  and  holy  families  almost 
life-size,  all  carved  and  painted  pink  and  blue, 
with  coronets  of  gold  and  red — ^we  passed  the 
old  walls  of  enclosed  courtyards,  over  which 
the  green  lilac-trees  and  ivies  come  thrusting; 


no  BlackBticft  papers 

the  archways  of  fine  old  mansions,  many  of 
which  still  retain  their  ancient  state,  others 
are  convents  now — museums — schools  of  art 
and  learning.  Then  we  come  to  the  great 
theatre  of  the  Odeon,  where  so  many  of 
George  Sand's  plays  were  acted,  and  past  the 
caf6  where  she  used  to  dine,  and  so  we  reach 
a  somewhat  imposing-looking  doorway,  5  Rue 
Gay-Lussac,  the  last  house  where  she  used  to 
stay  when  she  was  in  Paris.  We  read  that  in 
later  times  she  would  be  so  tired  by  her  short 
visits  to  town,  and  her  work  and  her  talk,  that 
she  sometimes  fell  asleep  for  thirty  hours  at  a 
time.  We  asked  leave  to  see  her  rooms,  which 
were  on  the  first  floor,  but  were  told  that  this 
was  not  possible.  "  But,  *'  said  the  concierge, 
**  there  is  a  lady  who  lives  just  underneath,  and 
her  apartment  is  identical;  I  think  she  would 
let  you  look  in  if  you  wished  it.''  The  lady 
agreed,  and  we  passed  into  the  inner  court- 
yard, and  mounted  a  few  steps  and  were 
admitted  then  and  there.  First  came  a 
narrow  passage  with  a  kitchen  looking  to  the 
court,  then  a  couple  of  fair-sized  rooms  each 
with  two  tall  shuttered  windows  to  the  street. 


Bobant  In  X874  m 

The  first  was  a  bedroom,  but  the  owner,  an 
admirer  of  George  Sand,  made  me  enter  the 
inner  room,  which  seemed  absolutely  dark  at 
first,  until  she  had  flung  open  the  tall  shutters. 
Then  I  saw  a  long-shaped,  rather  lofty  room 
looking  to  the  open  place;  an  ^tagbre,  a  small 
inlaid  table,  and  a  huge  stuffed  sofa  covered 
with  leather. 

**This  was  George  Sand's  sofa/'  said  the 
lady  solemnly.  "Sit  upon  it,  if  you  like; 
she  used  to  fling  herself  down  to  rest  upon  this 
couch  for  an  hour  in  the  night  when  she  was  at 
work;  all  night  long  she  used  to  drink  coffee  to 
keep  herself  awake.  Alexandre  Dumas  fils 
has  sat  upon  this  seat,''  the  lady  continued, 
"so  has  Dumas  pbre.  My  husband  was  alive 
when  George  Sand  died,  and  he  bought  it  from 
Monsieur  Maurice  Sand,  who  would  part  with 
nothing  else.  We  introduced  it  through  the 
window,  it  was  too  large  to  pass  the  doorway. " 
The  sacred  sofa  was  certainly  the  biggest  couch 
I  ever  saw,  with  a  comer  to  it  and  leather 
buttons  all  along. 

M.  Amic  tells  us  that  he  was  shown  a  corre- 
spondence written  long  years  before,  belong- 


112  J3lacftsttcft  papers 

ing  to  the  early  stormy  days,  when  Mme. 
Dudevant  had  just  left  her  husband  and  was 
vainly  trying  to  find  a  means  to  live;  she  had 
thought  of  writing,  but  she  feared  rebuff;  she 
had  been  trying  to  paint  upon  wood,  but  was 
obliged  to  give  it  up.  ''What  interests  me 
above  all  in  these  letters,"  says  Amic,  *'is  to 
find  the  Madame  Sand  I  know  in  harmony  in 
every  point  with  her  past  self.  She  seems  to 
me,  then  as  now,  gay,  devoted,  very  simple, 
very  modest,  and,  above  all,  maternal  and 
good."  "It  makes  me  happy"  he  repeats, 
"to  find  her  always  so  completely  in  harmony 
with  what  I  know  her  to  be. " 

No  wonder  the  young  man  is  grateful;  the 
letters  which  the  elder  woman  writes  to  him 
are  admirable  and  touching  in  their  justness 
and  interest,  no  less  when  they  discourage 
than  when  they  would  encourage.  She 
urges  him  to  keep  to  his  profession,  to  put  off 
literary  aspirations;  every  word  is  straight 
and  wise:  *'Read  a  great  deal  without  ceas- 
ing to  write,  vary  your  studies  so  as  to  renew 
your  intelligence — ^this  is  a  necessity  for  every 
human    being   who    writes;    observe,    think. 


laobant  In  1874  113 

write  down  what  you  yourself  have  felt, 
not  what  you  imagine  others  to  be  feeling. 
Feed  your  head  and  your  heart  also. "  "  Lais- 
sez  dormir  votre  id6e/'  she  says,  "vous  la 
r^veillerez  plus  tard  " — it  is  a  pity  to  spoil  the 
saying  by  translation.  ''You  write  easily, 
your  style  is  pure,  you  are  well  endowed,  but 
this  is  not  enough;  before  you  think  of  pro- 
ducing you  must  inform  yourself  and  work 
hard  and  constantly;  'piocher  ferme/  '*  she 
says. 


It  was  but  a  very  little  time  before  her  death 
that  she  wrote  another  letter  addressed  to  the 
author  of  the  history  from  which  I  have  been 
quoting.  He  is  impatient  and  tired  of  his 
work,  he  wants  to  give  up  the  bar  and  take 
to  literature;  she  reproaches  him  and  urges 
him  to  keep  to  his  vocation.  '*  I  have  thought 
of  your  discouragement — I  have  thought  of  it, 
and  I  do  not  sympathise.  It  is  not  possible 
that  you  are  lazy,  for  you  have  intelligence 
and  a  heart.     Laziness  is  the  infirmity  of  a 


114  JSlacftsticft  papers 

poor  spirit,  and  your  soul  is  large ;  you  do  not 
fear  the  dry  aridity  of  the  beginnings  of 
things.  *'  Then,  speaking  of  his  desire  to  give 
up  his  legal  studies,  "It  is  the  history  of 
civilised  man  upon  earth  that  you  disdain  to 
learn;  how  can  you  think  you  can  become  a 
good  writer  by  ignoring  all  this  and  suppress- 
ing the  very  reason  of  your  being  ?  How  often 
I  have  told  you  that  my  ignorance  was  one  of 
the  sorrows  of  my  life  as  a  writer!  Here  is  a 
closed  door  for  me,  opening  wide  for  you,  and 
you  refuse  to  enter:  you  who  have  youth, 
facility,  memory,  time — above  all,  time — 
spoilt  child  that  you  are.  You  complain  of 
the  life  you  lead;  you  are  distracted  because 
you  choose  to  be  distracted ;  when  one  wishes 
to  shut  oneself  up,  one  shuts  oneself  up;  when 
one  would  work,  one  works  in  the  midst  of 
noise;  one  accustoms  oneself  to  it  as  one  ac- 
customs oneself  to  sleep  in  the  midst  of  the 
rolling  of  carriages.'* 

"Dear  child,  have  I  pained  you?"  she  asks 
in  a  second  letter.  "I  am  all  sad  when  I 
think  of  it,  but  I  speak  as  if  I  had  brought  you 
into  the  world.     I  have  said  harder  things  to 


I^obant  in  1874  us 

Maurice  when  he  suffered  from  the  languors 
and  irresolutions  of  your  age.  To  write,  you 
must  have  lived  and  sought — you  must  have 
digested  much,  loved,  suffered,  waited,  work- 
ing always  ('piochanttou jours').  You  do  not 
want  to  be  like  those  urchins  of  literature 
who  think  no  end  of  themselves  because  they 
print  platitudes  and  absurdities ;  fly  from  these 
men  like  the  pest.  No,  believe  me,  art  is 
sacred,  a  cup  that  we  can  only  drink  after 
prayer  and  fasting.  Put  it  aside  if  you  cannot 
carry  on  together  the  study  of  the  foundations 
of  things  and  the  first  efforts  of  imagination; 
you  will  return  only  stronger  and  in  better 
mood  when  you  have  stood  your  trial  by  will, 
by  persistence,  by  the  vanquishing  of  disgust, 
by  the  sacrifice  of  leisure  and  amusement. '' 

Is  not  this  a  fine  letter  from  a  worker  of 
seventy  years  who  has  laboured  all  her  life,  to 
a  boy  scarce  over  twenty,  starting  on  his  way? 
It  is  too  long  to  quote  at  full  length,  but  every 
sentence  rings  like  a  bell  calling  to  work  or  to 
prayer. 

George  Sand's  relations  with  Flaubert,  her 
"vieux  Troubadour,"  as  she  names  him,  are 


ii6  35lacft5ttcft  papers 

also  specially  delightful  and  touching;  the 
motherly  instinct  by  which  she  tries  to  dispel 
the  gloom  which  settled  upon  his  morbid, 
generous  spirit;  the  charming  way  she  sym- 
pathises, laughs,  encourages — all  these  things 
make  one  realise  what  this  woman  must  have 
been  for  those  friends  who  depended  on  her. 
"  You  must  n't  be  ill,  you  must  n't  be  cross, 
my  old  Troubadour, "  she  writes  in  1872 ;  "  you 
must  cough  and  get  well,  and  say  that  France 
is  mad,  humanity  stupid,  and  that  we  are  not 
well-finished  animals;  only  we  must  love  each 
other  all  the  same,  oneself,  one's  fellow- 
creatures,  above  all,  one's  friends.  I  have 
sad  hours,  but  I  look  at  my  flowers,  those  two 
children  who  are  always  smiling ;  their  charm- 
ing mother,  my  good,  hard-working  son,  the 
end  of  the  world  would  still  find  him  search- 
ing, classifying,  following  out  each  day's  task, 
and,  when  he  takes  a  rare  hour's  rest,  he  is  gay 
as  Polichinelle  himself.  I  should  like  to  see 
you  less  irritated,  less  occupied  with  the  fool- 
ishness of  others;  to  me  it  seems  all  waste  of 
time,  like  complaining  of  the  weather  or  the 
flies." 


•Wobant  In  1874  117 

She  tries  to  encourage  with  a  noble  con- 
stancy. "The  eternal  thing  is  the  sentiment 
of  the  beautiful  in  a  good  heart/*  she  writes; 
"both  these  are  yours,  you  have  not  the  right 
not  to  be  happy.  Well,  sad  or  gay,  I  love 
you,  and  I  am  always  expecting  you,  but  you 
never  speak  of  coming  to  see  us. " 

Elsewhere  she  lectures  him.  "To  live  in 
oneself  is  so  bad,  the  greatest  of  intellectual 
pleasures  is  the  possibility  of  return  to  oneself 
after  being  absent  for  a  long  time ;  but  always 
to  inhabit  this  ego,  the  most  tyrannical,  the 
most  exacting,  the  most  fantastic  of  compan- 
ions— ^no,  it  is  not  to  be  done.  You  shut  up 
an  exuberant  nature  in  a  dungeon,  you  make 
a  tender  and  indulgent  heart  into  a  misan- 
thrope. ''  Then  she  tells  him  that  they  live  in 
bad  times,  and  that  to  surmount  them  they 
must  not  curse  but  pity  them.  In  one  of  her 
last  letters,  at  sixty-nine,  she  tells  Flaubert 
that  she  goes  every  day  to  plunge  in  the  cold 
froth  of  her  little  river — it  refreshes  and  re- 
stores and  fits  her  for  work!  She  writes  to 
him,  ill  and  in  pain,  but  still  full  of  courage 
and  benevolence.     His  book  has  been  criti- 


ii8  3Blacftst!c?t  ipapers 

cised;  she  fears  the  effect  upon  him.  "It  is 
all  the  worse  for  you  that  you  will  not  be  a 
man  of  nature  and  that  you  give  too  much 
importance  to  human  things.  We  are  nature. 
We  live  in  nature,  by  nature,  and  for  nature; 
talent,  wit,  genius  are  natural  phenomena  like 
the  wind,  the  stars,  the  clouds.  It  is  not  of 
criticism  that  man  should  ask  what  he  has 
done,  what  he  wants  to  do.  Criticism  knows 
nothing,  its  business  is  to  chatter;  nature 
alone  can  speak  to  the  intelligence  an  imper- 
ishable language. 

"  I  can  write  no  more,  I  must  tell  you  I  love 
you.     Send  news  of  yourself.'* 

Memorial  fetes  have  lately  been  held  to 
George  Sand 's  memory,  but  her  collected  letters 
are  the  best  monument  and  tribute  to  her 
life,  as  we  read  in  them  the  constant  unselfish 
thoughts  and  doings:  of  her  liberal  and  splen- 
did gifts,  of  the  pains  she  took,  the  readiness 
of  mind,  the  courage  to  meet  troubles,  which 
she  realised  more  for  others  than  for  herself. 
How  many  during  the  great  war  had  she  not 
rescued  from  death,  from  exile,  from  sickness, 
from  prison;  she  who  had  judged  so  madly, 


mobartttn  1874  119 

who  had  been  so  blind  for  herself,  was  wise 
and  far-seeing  for  others.  Again  and  again 
she  had  given  help  and  wisdom  and  advice  and 
medicines,  simples  from  her  garden,  the  pre- 
cious balms  and  ointments  of  good-will  and 
sympathy;  none  had  ever  been  sent  empty 
from  her  door. 

When  the  time  came  for  her  to  cease  her 
long  life's-work  she  was  carried  to  the  grave 
by  her  children,  by  her  friends,  by  the  sobbing 
villagers.  Victor  Hugo  telegraphed  an  ora- 
tion like  a  volley  of  musketry  over  her  grave. 
In  far-away  Russia  Tourguenieff  wrote  a  grate- 
ful message  of  admiration  that  was  never 
despatched.  Flaubert  wept  for  her — ^he  who 
had  known  her  faithful  kindness  for  years 
past;  so  did  the  humble  people  who  trusted 
her  ever  and  turned  to  her  with  undoubting 
hearts. 

Few  people  have  a  better  right  to  speak 
kindly  of  old  age  than  George  Sand.  If  ever 
there  was  a  case  of  "  hang  thou  my  fruit  upon 
the  tree,"  it  was  hers.  She  ripened  to  the 
last.  Her  outlook  grew  wider  as  time  passed 
over  her  head ;  those  unf orgotten  eyes  of  hers 


I20  JSlacftsttcft  papers 

never  lost  their  brightness,  but  they  looked 
up  and  around  instead  of  downwards.  How 
sound  and  to  be  trusted  was  her  judgment 
when  it  was  no  longer  overthrown  by  the  gust 
of  egotistic  passion  I  Her  last  letters  to  Flau- 
bert are  beautiful  among  letters,  bright  with 
the  light  of  understanding  friendship,  criti- 
cising his  work,  and,  what  is  far  more  rare, 
pointing  out  not  only  what  is  wrong  but  what 
may  be  made  right  in  his  books.  They  are  as 
beautiful  in  style  as  any  she  ever  wrote  in  her 
youth;  her  heart  is  in  them  as  much  as  her 
genius.  The  letters  to  the  young  disciple, 
panting  after  success,  are  full  of  a  motherly- 
grandmotherly  charity  and  the  interest  which 
belongs  to  all  sincere  feeling,  as  well  as  the 
harmony  of  that  which  has  itself  endured  to 
the  end.  It  is  almost  always  good  reading 
when  the  people  who  write  are  interested  in 
one  another  and  in  what  they  are  saying. 
As  people  get  older  the  joy  of  life  is  no  longer 
able  to  carry  them  along  oblivious  of  every- 
thing but  their  own  being  and  emotion;  the 
feeling  is  there  still,  only  in  a  new  shape ;  it  is 
no  longer  a  distinct  note  sounding  clearly. 


'Robantln  1874  121 

it  is  a  chord  that  strikes,  an  accompaniment 
that  harmonises  the  crudities. 

For  George  Sand  to  the  end  of  her  life  dis- 
cretion is  non-existent ;  its  place  is  occupied  by 
a  sort  of  benevolent  self-sufficiency,  a  genius 
of  expression.  She  is  an  improvisatrice,  as 
Henry  James  justly  says.  "She  wrote  as  a 
bird,  she  never  studied  her  expression." 

Renan,  writing  of  George  Sand  soon  after 
her  death,  used  a  true  simile.  He  spoke  of 
her  "sonorous  soul,"  and  he  said  she  was  the 
Eolian  harp  of  her  time. 

The  music  varies  which  is  given  from  the 
wind  by  reeds  and  strings,  each  sounding  the 
one  note  belonging  to  it.  Some  are  more 
fit  than  others  to  sing  encouragement  as  the 
quickening  blast  sweeps  by.  Was  it  to  Flau- 
bert or  another  that  she  wrote:  "  Je  te  souhaite 
la  meilleure  destin6e  possible  en  ce  triste 
monde,  oijl  il  faut  courage,  patience,  travail  et 
volenti — resignation  surtout ' '  ? 


No.  VII 
LINKS  WITH  THE  PAST 


If  the  Fairy  Blackstick  ever  wastes  her 
time  on  soliloquies  and  speculations,  and  if 
anything  at  all  strikes  her  very  particularly 
after  ten  or  twenty  thousand  years  of  experi- 
ence, she  might  perhaps  be  inclined  to  com- 
pare the  present  condition  of  women  with  what 
it  was  in  the  early  years  of  Queen  Victoria's 
reign.  There  is  certainly  a  difference — ^wo- 
men are  freer  under  King  Edward's  rule,  more 
independent,  more  impressionable,  more  gen- 
erally interested  in  the  affairs  of  life,  and 
probably  a  great  deal  happier  than  they  used 
to  be  sixty  years  ago;  but  notwithstanding 
the  spread  of  education — ^perhaps  because  of 
it — they  seem  in  some  ways  less  dominant 

122 


%in\iB  witb  tbe  past  123 

and  important,  not  so  much  considered,  as 
they  once  were.  They  may  be  authors  now, 
but  they  are  not  such  authorities;  they  may 
be  teachers,  but  they  are  no  longer  mistresses. 
They  seem  less  of  personalities  somehow.  It 
is  true  that  dress  reverts  to  those  feminine 
and  graceful  times.  Flounces,  flowing  scarves, 
falling  curls,  open-work  stockings,  and  large 
silk  bags  were  all  the  fashion  then,  and  seem 
to  be  coming  into  fashion  once  more.  But 
even  if  women  go  back  in  dress  and  looks  to 
the  'forties,  I  cannot  imagine  our  daughters 
and  granddaughters  really  subsiding  into  the 
elegant  domesticity  of  the  ladies  who  wore  big 
bonnets  and  tripped  escorted  by  gentlemen 
in  full  trousers  with  straps,  and  with  tassels 
hanging  to  their  canes,  and  with  stiff  stocks 
imder  their  chins. 

Society  consisted  of  a  series  of  little  king- 
doms then,  not  of  a  number  of  small  republics 
as  now.  I  cannot  imagine  any  person  now 
alive  whose  name  would  describe  a  whole 
phase  of  life  as  some  of  these  past  names  do  to 
us.  The  mention  of  them  brings  back  the 
thought,  not  only  of    the  people  themselves 


124  JSlacftBticft  papers 

but  of  the  good  company  they  kept — Doctor 
Johnson,  Mrs.  Thrale,  even  the  irrepressible 
Miss  Anna  Seward  come  before  us  surrounded 
by  their  admirers.  To  take  a  more  modem 
instance,  when  not  long  ago  Mrs.  Procter 
passed  away,  Charles  Lamb  himself  seemed 
to  die  again,  and  the  dear  and  gentle  Barry 
Cornwall  and  all  the  kind  and  comfortable 
company  of  wits  and  poets  who  gathered 
round  the  Procters'  hearth  seemed  to  go  far- 
ther off  into  space;  and  so,  indeed,  it  seemed 
when  Mrs.  Kemble  died,  the  last  of  her  noble 
generation. 

The  stately  old  tree  falls,  and  we  miss  its 
spreading  shade  and  comprehending  shelter; 
to  the  last  the  birds  have  sung  for  us  in  the 
branches  and  the  leaves  hang  on  to  the  end, 
and  old  and  young  gather  round  still,  and 
find  rest  and  entertainment  until  the  hour 
comes  when  all  is  over.  The  old  branches  go, 
and  the  ancient  stem  with  so  many  names  and 
signs  carved  deep  in  its  bark,  and  the  mem- 
ories of  the  storms  and  simshines  of  nearly 
a  century. 


Xinfts  w(tb  tbe  ipast  125 

II 

Eliza  Horace  Smith,  who  died  in  her  house 
at  Brighton  but  the  other  day,  could  go  back 
to  the  times  of  Princess  Charlotte  of  Wales, 
who  had  driven  her  as  a  child  in  her  big  coach 
through  the  London  squares  in  company  with 
some  other  children  well  known  to  the  Prin- 
cess. She  could  remember  Keats  and  Shelley, 
so  she  has  told  me,  and  also  we  read  of  her  as 
being  desired  by  her  father  to  look  at  a  gentle- 
man "in  ambrosial  dark,  and  sitting  beneath 
a  wide-spreading  ilex  tree."  **Do  you  see 
that  man? — ^that  is  a  poet,"  said  Horace 
Smith.  It  was  Keats,  already  ill  and  suf- 
fering, who  had  come  from  Hampstead  to 
Fulham  for  the  day. 

There  is  an  old  row  of  houses  forgotten  by 
the  tide,  and  still  standing  at  Fulham  amid 
the  new  lamps  and  half-baked  bricks,  and  the 
waste  and  lumber  of  the  railway,  and  of  the 
flats  rising  to  gigantic  heights.  There  the 
little  peaceful  row  still  stands,  looking  quaint 
and  picturesque,  awaiting  its  doom  with  tran- 
quil dignity.     If  I  do  not  mistake  it  was  in 


V 

OFTH.: 

UNIVBRSi  i 


126  JSlacftsticft  papers 

one  of  these  pretty  old  houses,  an  end  house 
with  a  large  garden  then  belonging  to  it,  that 
Horace  Smith  dwelt  after  his  second  marriage. 
It  was  here  that  his  daughter  Rosalind  was 
bom,  and  that  he  made  the  acquaintance  of 
Keats  and  of  Shelley,  to  whom  he  was  so  true 
a  friend  to  the  last.  This  fidelity  of  feeling  and 
interest  was  inherited  by  his  daughter.  She 
has  shown  me  page  upon  page  in  Shelley's 
flowing  hand-writing — notes  to  her  father 
rather  practical  than  poetic,  requests,  details, 
demands  for  books,  for  bills,  directions  about 
directions  and  packings  and  despatchings. 
The  letters  came  from  Pisa  and  from  other 
places  in  Italy.  I  also  saw  two  or  three  from 
Byron  and  from  Leigh  Hunt  on  immense 
sheets  of  paper;  they  appeared,  besides  the 
thanks,  to  be  full  of  rather  tiresome  direc- 
tions and  elaborate  requisitions — one  could 
only  be  amazed  at  the  extraordinary  patience 
of  all  that  brilliant  generation,  at  the  careful 
details  and  calculations  it  went  into.  We  who 
have  life  simplified  for  us  by  a  paternal  gov- 
ernment, parcel  post,  money  orders,  telegraphs, 
halfpenny  cards,  can  hardly  realise  the  impor- 


Xinfts  witb  tbe  past  127 

tance  of  minutiae  in  those  days  of  straps  and 
stocks;  nor,  indeed,  can  we  quite  realise  the 
wonderful  interest  and  response  of  Horace 
Smith,  the  kind  man  of  business,  man  of 
friendship, — one  hardly  knows  by  what  name 
to  call  the  link  between  him  and  his  beloved 
poets. 

At  Shelley's  death  Horace  Smith  found  that 
he  had  paid  some  hundred  and  fifty  pounds 
for  postages  and  small  commissions  which  he 
never  asked  for,  so  Miss  Horace  Smith  once 
told  me.  It  was  to  Horace  Smith  that  Mrs. 
Shelley  came  flying  in  her  despair  after  her 
widowhood — ^the  Smith  family  was  at  Ver- 
sailles at  the  time,  and  to  them  for  unfailing 
help  and  counsel  the  poor  young  lady  turned. 
Eliza  said  she  could  remember  her  coming  in, 
with  her  pale  face  and  in  her  travelling  dress 
after  the  long  forlorn  journey. 


Ill 


In  the  biographical  preface  to  Pendennis 
there  is  the  following  sentence  about  one  of 
the  children  of  Horace  Smith: 


128  Blacftsttcft  papers 

*'  In  those  days  there  was  living  in  Brighton 
a  charming  little  girl,  with  dark  eyes  and  curly 
brown  hair,  and  I  have  often  heard  the  story 
how  she  came  running  into  the  room  and  said 
her  name  was  Laura,  and  how  the  writer  of 
Pendennis  then  and  there  made  her  the  god- 
mother to  his  new  heroine.  She  was  the 
youngest  of  the  three  daughters  of  Horace 
Smith,  of  the  Rejected  Addresses.  She  mar- 
ried Mr.  John  Round,  and  died  still  yoimg, 
still  dark-eyed,  gay,  and  charming.  .  .  .** 

The  other  sisters  never  married,  though 
Rosalind,  the  second,  was  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  of  women,  and  rumours  of  re- 
jected addresses  followed  her  more  persist- 
ently than  any  other  person  I  have  ever 
known.  I  remember  hearing  her  say,  laugh- 
ing, to  my  father:  **I  seem  to  have  some 
natural  attraction  for  curates;  I  really  can- 
not help  it — nothing  would  induce  me  to 
marry  a  curate.  I  suppose  it  must  be  some 
law  of  contrast  which  interests  them  in 
me.'' 

The  curates  of  those  days  had  very  good 
taste  if  they  admired  Rosalind  Smith,  for  no 


%ink3  wttb  tbe  past  129 

one  who  ever  saw  her  will  forget  the  bright 
face,  the  sweet  voice  discoursing  so  gaily ;  when 
her  dark  curls  turned  to  snowy  white,  the  lady 
was  prettier  if  possible  than  before;  light  of 
step,  kind  of  heart,  sweet-tempered,  and  de- 
voted to  the  very  last  to  her  elder  sister,  who 
survived  her  in  sad  loneliness  of  spirit  for 
many  years. 

In  the  Life  of  Horace  and  James  Smith 
there  are  occasional  mentions  of  Eliza,  who 
was  a  great  deal  the  eldest  of  the  three  daugh- 
ters. She  seems  to  have  been  delicate  as  a 
child,  then  she  improves.  **Her  bones  no 
longer  rattle  as  she  walks, "  writes  her  father; 
and  finally  she  is  ordered  to  be  diligent,  and 
to  practise  her  trills  and  scales  when  she  goes 
away  from  home  on  a  visit.  She  was  a  bril- 
liant musician  in  after  days.  She  used  to 
sing  very  well  indeed,  besides  talking  with 
flashing  wit  and  with  confidence.  There 
is  a  little  sonnet  to  her  by  her  grandfather, 
written  in  the  lively  style  of  the  period, 
and  characteristic  of  the  family  wit,  which 
gives  one  a  pleasant  impression  of  good, 
spirits  and  good  humour — ^Tizey-Phillis  had 


I30  JSlacftsttcft  papers 

asked    her    grandfather    to     write    in     her 
album : 

'  O,  what  is  Cupid  with  his  bow  and  dart 

Compared  to  Phillis  and  her  strange  demands? 
The  little  archer  only  aims  at  hearts: 

She  takes  our  hearts — ^then  asks  us  for  our  hands. 
But  will  no  Damon  check  the  wild  career, 

And  strive,  at  least,  to  shorten  the  research — 
Nor  dare  to  turn  the  tables  on  the  fair 

By  asking  her  to  sign  his  album  in  the  church? 

When  poor  Phillis  was  still  quite  young  her 
beauty  was  disfigured  and  her  nose  hopelessly 
broken  by  a  terrible  fall,  which,  so  I  have 
heard,  influenced  her  whole  fate.  As  she  saw 
herself  in  the  glass  afterwards,  her  heart  was 
heavy  indeed ;  she  abandoned  a  hope  then  very 
dear  to  her,  and  she  made  a  vow  to  herself 
with  tears  never  to  let  her  own  mischance  in  life 
embitter  her  feelings  or  lessen  her  sympathy 
in  the  happiness  of  others.  This  vow  she  en- 
deavoured to  keep  with  the  last  response  of  her 
failing  powers,  trying  to  the  end  to  realise,  and, 
in  a  measure,  to  enjoy,  the  happiness  of  other 
lives,  though  she  had  been  left  lonely  by  Fate, 
and  all  her  generation  had  gone  before  her. 


%in\{3  xQitb  tbe  pa6t  131 

IV 

Brighton  in  the  days  of  the  Horace  Smiths 
filled  the  place  which  some  foreign  watering- 
places  now  hold.  It  was  a  playground  for 
many  a  hard-worked  statesman.  Literary 
men  came  there,  painters,  actors.  It  had  also 
a  society  of  its  own.  Rich  Americans  did  not 
then  exist,  but  the  Duke  of  Devonshire  of 
those  days  lived  much  at  Brighton,  and  en- 
tertained. Other  people  of  mark  and  means 
had  their  houses  there ;  many  notabilities  used 
to  stay  there  for  the  season :  among  these  came 
Harriet  Mellon,  the  well-known  Duchess  of  St. 
Albans.  They  came,  not  in  an  hour  for  a 
week-end  as  now,  but  driving  down  in  post- 
chaises,  with  their  footmen  and  attendants, 
and  elaborately  establishing  themselves.  We 
read  in  the  Newdigate  Letters  of  the  diffi- 
culties they  often  had  in  finding  suitable 
accommodation  for  their  various  foUowings. 
To  all  this  spirited  society  Eliza  was  welcomed. 
Her  father  was  evidently  proud  of  her  position 
and  success,  of  her  fine  singing,  her  merry  talk. 

She  used  to  like  to  dwell  on  all  these  times, 


132  JBlacft6ticft  papers 

on  bygone  heroines  who  eloped,  on  the  various 
bucks  and  dandies  who  fought  duels  and  daz- 
zled the  onlookers.  I  have  heard  her  describ- 
ing the  dandies  of  her  youth,  a  Caradoc  among 
them.  So  handsome  and  magnificent,  she 
said,  that  when  he  fought  a  duel  in  Paris,  and 
was  wounded  in  the  arm,  all  the  great  ladies 
appeared  with  their  sleeves  cut  away  and  tied 
up  with  red  ribbons,  couleur  de  sang. 

"  You  people  are  so  dreadfully  young,  *'  said 
Tizey  not  long  ago  to  two  respectable,  middle- 
aged  visitors;  **you  don't  remember  any  of 
the  people  I  am  telling  you  about.'*  In  the 
present  as  in  the  past  she  liked  the  present- 
able, the  agreeable;  no  one  knew  better  how 
to  appreciate  these  excellent  attributes. 

The  recording  angel  may  often  have  sup- 
pressed a  smile  as  he  put  down  some  brilliant 
droll  saying  of  Tizey's.  He  will  have  had 
but  few  effacing  tears  to  drop  upon  the  page. 
Bacon  writes  of  talk  that  should  be  kept  salt, 
not  acid.  Tizey's  talk  was  salt,  not  bitter. 
Her  sallies  concerned  things  rather  than  per- 
sonal feelings,  as  befitted  "the  bright,  keen- 
witted woman  whom  I  delighted  to  listen  to, " 


Xinfts  wltb  tbe  ipast  133 

so  Mr.  Hamilton  Aid6  described  her  with 
kindly  discrimination.  When  all  the  world 
strolls  up  and  down  before  your  windows  it  is 
impossible  not  to  be  amused  and  to  specu- 
late upon  its  comings  and  goings,  and  Tizey 
gossiped  and  speculated;  but  she  could  talk 
of  other  serious  things  clearly,  definitely,  and 
courageously. 

Another  of  her  friends,  after  a  long  absence, 
going  to  call,  was  ashamed  and  touched  by  the 
unmistakable  pleasure  and  affection  expressed 
by  the  invalid  in  her  chimney  comer.  It  was 
then,  as  she  sat  with  her  back  to  the  window, 
against  which  the  wind  was  beating,  and  with 
her  hands  before  her  in  a  little  muff  she  liked 
to  use,  that  Tizey  made  that  well-known  an- 
swer in  reply  to  the  conventional,  "  I  am  afraid 
you  feel  the  change  of  the  weather. "  "  Yes, " 
she  answered  gravely,  ''  I  feel  it,  and  I  suffer 
from  it,  and  I  tell  myself  I  am  part  of  the 
universe.  '*  King  Lear  himself  could  not  have 
spoken  better. 

A  kind  and  fair  hostess  recalls  an  amusing 
saying  one  day,  when  Miss  Horace  Smith  was 
staying  with  her  at  Cannizaro.      Some  of  the 


134  JSlacftstfcft  papers 

party  had  been  to  the  theatre,  and  on  her  re- 
turn Miss  Horace  Smith  was  asked  whether 
she  had  enjoyed  the  play.  **  It  was  all  very 
dull,"  she  said,  **the  play  was  dull  and  the 
theatre  nearly  empty — there  was  nobody  in 
the  boxes,  nobody  in  the  stalls,  not  even  an 
ox!'*  Who  ever  imagined  a  stalled  ox  in 
such  juxtaposition  before? 

When  Mr.  Briggs  was  murdered  in  a  train 
going  to  Brighton,  a  man  was  suspected  be- 
cause Mr.  Briggs's  watch  was  discovered 
hidden  in  his  boot.  "What  of  that?"  cries 
Miss  Horace  Smith;  "I  have  a  clock  in  my 
stocking,  but  I  didn't  murder  Mr.  Briggs." 

It  was  on  the  terrace  of  this  same  hospitable 
Cannizaro,  with  its  waving  woods  and  spread- 
ing lawns,  that  the  writer  once  heard  Miss 
Smith  laughing  and  replying  to  a  respectful 
inquirer,  "Yes,  I  suppose  we  certainly  had 
what  people  call  a  salon,  but  what  we  piqued 
ourselves  most  upon  was  that  it  never  led  to 
a  salle-h-manger ,'' 

It  is  a  received  fact  that  people  cannot  eat 
and  talk  comfortably  at  the  same  time,  and 
the  superiority  of  the  wit  and  the  conversation 


%lnl{3  voitb  tbe  past  135 

of  those  bygone  educated  tea-tables  to  that  of 
our  more  elaborate  dinner-tables  may  be  easily 
explained.  Our  generation  writes  when  it 
wishes  to  be  heard,  that  one  wrote  less,  talked 
more,  and  more  to  the  point;  it  read  more 
thoroughly  in  its  own  books,  and  not  in 
Mudie's  only,  and  people  having  fewer  ac- 
quaintances gave  themselves  more  to  their 
friends. 

The  two  Miss  Horace  Smiths  in  their  little 
Brighton  world  did  something  not  unlike  what 
the  Miss  Berrys — Horace  Smith's  strawberries 
as  he  loved  to  call  them— were  doing  in  the 
quiet  house  in  Mayfair,  where  the  light  over 
the  doorway  meant  that  the  ladies  were  at 
home  and  ready  to  receive  good  company  in 
the  unpretentious  grey  rooms.  The  pretty 
little  house  in  Sillwood  Place  was  always 
lighted  up  with  friendly  welcome. 


Miss  Horace  Smith  once  told  me  a  story.  It 
was  long  and  complicated,  but  she  assured  me 
she  had  told  it  my  father  just  before  he  wrote 


136  :Blacft5ticft  papers 

Pendennis,  and  that  it  had  partly  suggested 
the  opening  chapters.  It  concerned  a  family 
living  in  Brighton,  somewhere  near  Kemp 
Town.  There  was  a  somewhat  autocratic 
father  and  a  romantic  young  son  who  had  lost 
his  heart  to  the  housemaid  and  determined  to 
marry  her.  The  father  made  the  young  man 
give  his  word  of  honour  that  he  would  not 
marry  clandestinely,  and  then  having  dis- 
missed him  rang  the  bell  for  the  butler.  To 
the  butler  this  Major  Pendennis  said:  "Mor- 
gan" (or  whatever  his  name  was),  **I  wish 
you  to  retire  from  my  service,  but  I  will  give 
you  ;£2oo  in  bank-notes  if  you  will  marry 
the  housemaid  before  twelve  o'clock  to- 
morrow." The  butler  said,  ''Certainly,  sir," 
and  the  young  man  next  morning  was  told 
of  that  which  had  occurred.  As  far  as  I 
remember  a  melancholy  and  sensational  event 
immediately  followed;  for  the  poor  young 
fellow  was  so  overwhelmed  that  he  rushed  out 
and  distractedly  blew  his  brains  out  on  the 
Downs  behind  the  house,  and  the  butler 
meanwhile,  having  changed  his  ;£2oo,  sent  a 
message  to  say  that  he  had  omitted  to  mention 


%in\{B  witb  tbe  past  137 

that  he  had  a  wife  already,  and  that  this 
would  doubtless  invalidate  the  ceremony  he 
had  just  gone  through  with  the  housemaid. 

But  Tizey's  forte  was  not  as  a  raconteuse. 
She  had  too  much  vapid  wit,  and,  shall  I  say, 
too  much  active  good  sense;  she  could  not 
dwell  gently  and  suggestively  on  the  fore- 
running facts  and  indications  which  go  to 
make  a  story  seem  real,  and  to  place  it  vividly 
before  the  hearer.  It  was  as  a  cheerful  and 
witty  commentator  upon  the  daily  story  of 
life  that  she  was  remarkable.  She  had  plenty 
of  prejudices,  good  old  conservative  preju- 
dices; she  did  not  at  all  believe  that  all  men 
were  equal  in  the  eyes  of  heaven;  she  would 
sweep  away  a  whole  terrace-full  of  respectable 
persons  from  her  door  with  old-fashioned  spirit 
and  decision.  Some  one  once  recommended 
a  parlour-maid  to  her  when  she  was  long  past 
eighty.  "  Your  girl  came;  I  sent  her  away  at 
once,"  she  said;  **she  wore  spectacles.  Im- 
agine what  would  be  thought  if  I  allowed  a 
woman  in  spectacles  to  open  the  door.  People 
would  imagine  I  was  at  my  last  gasp." 

It   cannot    be   denied    that    sisters    make 


138  IBlacftsttcft  papers 

charming  hostesses,  wherever  one  finds  them 
keeping  house  together  and  hospitably  in- 
clined. For  one  thing,  it  is  a  gain  to  have  two 
hostesses  instead  of  one,  and  sisters  are  ac- 
customed to  one  another  and  can  understand 
each  other  without  a  word  and  instinctively 
feel  what  is  going  on:  they  can  talk  together 
of  quite  different  things  and  yet  keep  tune. 
Many  a  sisterly  shrine  must  occur  to  each  one 
of  us,  with  warming  hearth  and  pleasant 
words  of  welcome.  It  matters  not  whether 
it  is  in  Brighton  or  in  London,  past  or  pres- 
ent ;  or  in  murky  Manchester  or  on  a  Cornish 
crag,  or  by  some  distant  Cumberland  lake- 
side; one  always  seems  to  be  at  ease  where 
reflected  kindness  lights  up  the  friendly  hours 
of  companionship  and  rest. 


No.  VIII 
MARY  AND  AGNES  BERRY 


ZoFFANY  once  painted  a  picture  of  two 
charming  little  sisters  in  a  garden  playing 
with  a  big  dog:  one  girl  sits  on  the  stump  of 
a  newly  felled  tree  holding  back  the  great 
retriever  with  a  pretty  warning  finger  out- 
stretched; the  other  sister  stands  beside  her, 
with  a  merry  questioning  look  in  her  dark 
eyes.  The  two  are  little  girls  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  and  they  wear  the  walking 
dress  of  that  time — the  low  frocks  and  elbow 
sleeves,  also  the  Georgian  shoes  and  large 
buckles;  their  odd  feathered  toques  are  not 
unlike  those  that  are  now  in  fashion. 

"  If  I  have  picked  up  few  recent  anecdotes 

on  our  common  [writes  Horace  Walpole,  some 

139 


I40  BlacftBticft  papers 

years  later,  in  1788],  I  have  made  a  much 
more — to  me — ^precious  acquisition.  It  is 
the  acquaintance  of  two  young  ladies  of  the 
name  of  Berry,  whom  I  first  saw  last  winter, 
and  who  accidentally  took  a  house  here  with 
their  father  for  the  season.  ..." 

Then  he  goes  on  to  describe  them  to  his 
correspondent,  Lady  Ossory: 

"The  best  informed,  the  most  perfect 
creatures  I  ever  saw  at  their  age.  They  are 
exceedingly  sensible,  entirely  natural  and 
unaffected.  .  .  .  The  eldest,  I  discovered  by 
chance,  understands  Latin,  and  is  a  perfect 
Frenchwoman  in  her  language;  the  younger 
draws  charmingly,  and  has  copied  Lady  Di's 
gypsies,  which  I  lent." 

(How  well  one  knows  that  particular  gypsy 
faded  shaded  style  of  bygone  art!)  Horace 
goes  on  with  his  pretty  description: 

*'They  are  of  pleasing  figures;  Mary,  the 
eldest,  sweet,  with  fine  dark  eyes  that  are  very 
lively  when  she  speaks,  with  a  symmetry  of 
face  that  is  the  more  interesting  from  being 
pale;  Agnes,  the  younger,  has  an  agreeable, 
sensible  countenance.     I  must  even  tell  you 


abates  anb  UQncB  JBerts  141 

they  dress  within  the  bounds  of  fashion,  but 
without  the  excrescences  and  balconies  with 
which  modem  hoydens  overwhelm  and  barri- 
cade their  persons.  ..." 

He  had  at  first  refused  to  make  their  ac- 
quaintance, but  later  on  he  changed  his 
mind.  "In  a  very  small  company,"  he 
says,  **  I  sat  next  to  Mary  and  found  her  an 
angel  within  and  without. "  Horace  Walpole 
was  past  seventy,  and  Mary  was  about  twenty- 
five  years  old  at  this  time. 

She  was  bom  in  1 763 ,  Agnes  in  1 764.  Their 
mother  died  in  their  infancy;  their  father 
seems  to  have  been  an  amiable  nonentity,  de- 
scribed by  Horace  Walpole  as  a  **  little  merry 
man  with  a  round  face. "  "I  was  still  quite  a 
young  girl  when  I  found  I  had  to  be  adviser 
and  protector  to  both  my  father  and  my 
sister, "  so  Mary  told  some  one  in  after  years. 
It  was  Horace  Walpole's  interest  and  notice 
which  first  gave  the  Miss  Berrys  their  position 
in  London  society;  it  was  their  own  intelli- 
gence and  kindliness  which  enabled  them  to 
hold  it  for  sixty  years,  from  that  day  when 
Mary  first  sat  next  him  at  dinner.     They 


142  J5Iacft6ttcft  papers 

knew  all  the  most  interesting  people  who 
lived  during  the  century;  they  made  them 
welcome,  and  their  hospitality  was  welcome 
to  others.  They  received  almost  every  night ; 
when  a  light  in  the  window  over  the  doorway 
showed  that  they  were  at  home  and  ready  for 
their  friendly  visitors. 

Mr.  Seeley,  the  editor  of  a  selection  of  Wal- 
pole's  letters,  quotes  a  personal  description  of 
Horace  himself  as  a  visitor: 

**He  would  enter  a  room  in  the  style  of 
affected  delicacy  then  in  fashion,  chapeau  has 
between  his  hands,  walking  on  his  toes,  knees 
bent  ...  his  dress  would  be  lavender  and 
silver,  or  white  silk  worked  in  the  tambour, 
with  partridge-coloured  silk  stockings,  and 
gold  buckles,  and  ruffles  and  lace.'' 

A  later  sadder  picture  belongs  rather  to  the 
period  of  his  friendship  with  the  Berrys. 
Horace,  lame  and  suffering,  supported  by  his 
valet  and  followed  by  the  little  fat  dog  be- 
queathed to  him  by  Mme.  du  Deffand,  is 
helped  to  the  sofa,  on  which  he  establishes 
himself,  and  where,  wonderful  to  read  of,  he 
used  to  remain  talking  agreeably  from  five 


ffbav^  anb  Hgnes  Berr^  143 

o'clock  after  dinner  till  two  in  the  morning. 
Present  intercourse  seems  mute  and  frozen  in 
comparison !  So  much  for  his  talking.  Con- 
cerning his  writing,  Sir  Leslie  Stephen  pays 
him  a  real  tribute  in  the  opening  lines  of  his 
article  on  Horace  Walpole,  when  he  says, 
"The  history  of  England  throughout  a  very 
large  segment  of  the  eighteenth  century  is 
simply  a  synonym  for  the  works  of  Horace 
Walpole,"  and  in  a  very  few  sentences  he 
raises  before  us  the  brilliant  wit  who  ''could 
throw  electric  flashes  of  light  on  the  figure 
he  described,**  "who  errs  from  petulancy  not 
from  stupidity,"  "who  can  appreciate  great 
qualities  by  fits,  tho'  he  cannot  be  steadily 
loyal  to  their  possessors."  Another  critic  has 
written  of  "the  man  best  described  by  nega- 
tions, the  dilettante,  for  whom  business  was  a 
trifle,  and  trifles  were  serious  business,  the 
Diogenes  who  was  a  gentleman  usher  at 
heart" — all  the  same  for  Fairy  Blacksticks 
and  other  elderly  feminine  sympathisers, 
there  seems  in  this  late  friendship  of  the  man 
of  negations  some  revealing  dawn  of  gentleness 
following  that  long  winter  of  forced  content 


144  JSlacftBticft  papers 

and  cynicism ;  some  light  arising  to  change  the 
value  of  the  shadows  that  he  valued  so  un- 
duly, and  a  vibration  of  the  human  under 
the  inhumanity  of  selfishness  and  affectation. 
Old,  broken,  and  weary,  Horace  Walpole 
begins  to  love  some  one  better  than  himself. 
Take  his  letter  on  parting  with  the  Berrys: 

"Sunday,  October  lo,  1790,  the  day  of  your 
departure.  Is  it  possible  to  write  to  my  be- 
loved friends  and  refrain  from  speaking  of  my 
grief  for  losing  you;  tho'  it  is  but  the  con- 
tinuance of  what  I  have  felt  ever  since  I  was 
stunned  by  your  intention  of  going  abroad  this 
autumn?  Still,  I  will  not  tire  you  with  it 
often.  In  happy  days  I  smiled  and  called  you 
my  dear  wives;  now  I  can  only  think  of  you 
as  darling  children  of  whom  I  am  bereaved." 

Elsewhere  he  goes  on: 

*'  I  am  determined  to  forbid  myself  lamenta- 
tions that  would  weary  you,  and  the  frequency 
of  my  letters  will  prove  there  is  no  forgetful- 
ness.  If  I  live  to  see  you  again  you  will  then 
judge  whether  I  am  changed." 

And  then  he  adds: 

*'  A  friendship  like  mine  is  not  likely  to  have 


{Jbav^  ant>  Ugncs  JSerri?  145 

any  of  the  fickleness  of  youth  when  it  has  none 
of  its  other  ingredients.  ...  I  am  not 
ashamed  to  say  that  your  loss  is  heavy  to  me, 
and  that  I  am  only  reconciled  to  it  by  hoping 
that  a  winter  in  Italy  and  the  journeys  and 
sea-air  will  be  very  beneficial  to  two  constitu- 
tions so  delicate  as  yours.  Adieu,  my  dearest 
friends.  It  would  be  tautology  to  subscribe 
a  name  to  a  letter  every  line  of  which  would 
suit  no  other  man  in  the  world  but  the  writer.  ** 

This  is  the  language  of  real  and  tender  feel- 
ing, and  comes  home  to  one  as  one  reads. 

The  correspondence  reveals  a  dignified  and 
touching  relation  between  the  three,  the  tired 
old  man  of  the  world  and  the  two  girls  in- 
terested, delighted  with  his  wit,  his  friends,  his 
kindness,  returning  his  feeling  with  natural- 
ness and  response. 


n 


These  ladies,  Horace  Walpole's  well-loved 
Strawberries,  were  landmarks  in  their  way — 
Mary  Berry,  the  elder  sister,  had  she  so  willed 
it,  might  have  married  her  "devoted*'  Orford 


146  JSlacftsticft  papers 

as  he  liked  to  sign  himself.  ''Mayhap  I  may 
not  write  to  you  again, "  he  says,  ''  for  I  know 
not  how  many  minutes  to  come!'*  .  .  . 

A  certain  philosophical  acceptance  of  cir- 
cumstances distinguished  the  women  of  Mary 
Berry's  intellect  and  generation  in  contradis- 
tinction from  the  varying  impressions  of  the 
sentimentalists  who  followed,  of  the  n&ureuses 
who  are.  Self-complacency  must  have  made 
life  much  easier  in  those  fortunate  times. 
Miss  Berry  certainly  possessed  a  great  deal  of 
this  stoicism,  though  she  was  also  haunted  by 
sad  apprehensions  and  low  spirits.  *'  I  feared 
some  real  misfortune  had  befallen  you  from 
your  letter,"  writes  a  friend  who  is  much 
relieved  to  find  it  is  only  low  spirits  that  she 
is  complaining  of. 

Mary  Berry's  absolute  independence  told  all 
for  good  in  her  friendship  with  the  spoiled  old 
man.  She  was  grateful,  faithful,  interested, 
but  also  she  went  her  own  way,  consulted  her 
own  convenience  in  all  her  relations  with  him, 
held  her  own,  as  people  say. 

Miss  Berry's  Memoirs  were  not  published 
till    1865,    ^y  Lady  Theresa    Lewis,    one   of 


/Rar^  ant)  Hgnes  JSerr^  147 

her  constant  visitors,  and  the  three  big 
volumes  speak  no  less  for  the  editor's  faithful 
sympathy  and  appreciation  than  for  the  gift 
Miss  Berry  undoubtedly  possessed  of  making 
friends.  Her  circumstances  and  her  person- 
ality must  have  been  very  interesting;  her 
correspondence  on  the  contrary  seems  ex- 
tremely dull  and  didactic,  and  cannot  in  the 
least  have  done  justice  to  **the  angel  within 
and  without/'  Miss  Berry  herself  seems  to 
have  been  prouder  of  her  serious  turn  of  mind 
than  of  any  other  attraction.  There  is  a 
characteristic  record  of  her  having  said  of  her 
sister  after  her  death  that  ''she  had  every 
charm  a  woman  should  possess,  but  she  had 
not  her  own  intellectual  powers,  she  could  not 
reason  so  well!" 

There  are  allusions  in  Lady  Theresa's  short 
and  admirable  preface  to  Miss  Berry's  life  to 
Mary's  engagement  to  General  O'Hara.  Both 
the  sisters  indeed  seem  to  have  had  lonhappy 
love  stories.  How  much  share  Mary's  friend- 
ship for  Horace  Walpole  may  have  had  in  the 
breaking  off  of  her  marriage  we  do  not  know ; 
possibly  the  fear  of  wounding  him  may  have 


143  3BlacRsticl^  papers 

caused  delay,  and  that  separation  which  led  to 
a  final  estrangement. 

Among  many  of  Miss  Berry's  friends  come 
the  names  of  Joanna  Baillie,  and  of  Sir  Walter 
himself  on  some  occasions.  Miss  Berry  once 
playfully  tells  Joanna  Baillie  that  in  Arcady 
her  name  of  Berry  is  changed  to  Berrina,  *'  and 
that  this  name  cut  by  her  own  fair  hand  is  to 
be  seen  carved  on  one  of  the  largest  trees  in  a 
ravine  at  Blantyre. "  We  read  of  meetings 
when  Berrina  reads  her  works  to  the  approv- 
ing Joanna,  then  she  goes  on  to  see  Sir  Walter 
Scott,  and  ends  the  day  by  dining  at  Sir  John 
Stanley's  and  meeting  Miss  Fanshawe  there. 

She  sees  a  good  deal  at  one  time  of  the 
Princess  of  Wales,  of  whom  she  speaks  with 
criticism: 

"The  last  dance  she  danced  with  Lyttleton 
— such  an  exhibition!  but  that  she  did  not 
feel  for  herself  one  would  have  felt  for  her! 
An  overdressed,  bare-bosomed,  painted-eye- 
browed  figure  such  as  one  never  saw.  G. 
Robinson  said  she  was  the  only  true  friend  the 
Prince  of  Wales  has,  as  she  went  about  justi- 
fying his  conduct. " 


a^ars  an^  Ugncs  Bert^  149 

The  present  writer  once  lived  in  a  house  at 
Wimbledon  of  which  the  garden  adjoined  the 
gardens  of  the  Grange,  which  was  still  standing 
in  1890,  and  which  had  belonged  to  Sir  Francis 
Burdett.  A  part  of  our  garden  was  cut  off 
from  what  had  been  the  kitchen  garden  of  the 
Grange,  only  divided  by  a  ditch  and  an  old 
straggling  hedge.  There — so  the  legend  ran 
— Sir  Francis  Burdett  was  walking  when  he 
was  arrested  and  carried  off  to  the  Tower. 
For  these  personal  reasons  it  is  interesting 
to  the  writer  to  read  the  accounts  in  Miss 
Berry's  diary  for  1810  of  the  streets  full  of 
crowds,  moving  about  in  all  directions  to 
witness  the  release  of  Sir  Francis  Burdett. 
"Went  in  our  carriage  down  to  Piccadilly 
just  as  the  procession  with  its  innumerable 
attendants  was  passing,"  writes  Miss  Berry. 

She  goes  on  to  tell  of  shabby  carriages, 
squadrons  of  people  on  horseback  forming  a 
procession  in  which  Sir  Francis  was  not;  he 
having  gone  quietly  from  the  Tower  by  water 
to  Putney,  and  from  thence  to  Wimbledon  to 
the  great  disappointment  of  his  followers. 

It  is  also  pleasant  to  read  that  there  used  to 


I50  JSlacftsticft  papers 

be  sunshine  and  hay-making  in  London  in 
those  times.  Writing  on  June  26th  in  1809 
Miss  Berry  describes: 

*' After  dinner,  walked  with  my  father  and 
sister  to  the  fields  between  Paddington  and 
Bayswater;  the  hay-making  was  going  on. 
It  was  a  beautiful,  warm,  quiet  evening.  We 
sat  for  some  time  on  the  cocks  of  hay  which 
I  really  enjoyed,  but  in  how  melancholy  a 
manner.  Heaven,  who  sees  within  my  soul, 
alone  can  know." 

The  present  writer  remembers  as  a  child 
hay-making,  cows,  and  a  syllabub  in  the  fields 
beyond  Holland  House,  and  enjoying  a  hay- 
cock without  any  melancholy  feelings,  except 
perhaps  disappointment  to  find  how  lit- 
tle to  her  taste  was  that  syllabub  of  which 
Miss  Edgeworth  had  written  such  eloquent 
descriptions. 


Ill 


Once,  towards  the  very  end  of  her  life.  Miss 
Berry  gave  a  coral  necklace  to  a  friend  of  a 
younger  generation.     "Take  it,   my  dear," 


/ftari^  ant)  Bgnes  3Berrp  151 

she  said,  "  I  wore  it  the  first  time  I  ever  met 
Horace  Walpole. "  This  younger  friend  was 
Miss  Katharine  Perry,  for  whom,  and  for  her 
sister,  Mrs.  Frederick  Elliot,  my  father*s 
affectionate  admiration  was  great.  These 
two  sisters  were  on  very  intimate  terms  with 
the  ladies  of  Ctirzon  Street.  Miss  Perry  has 
left  a  little  privately  printed  pamphlet  of 
extracts  from  a  diary  kept  in  1849,  ^^  which 
two  or  three  pages  give  a  pretty  picture  of  the 
Miss  Berrys  and  their  home  circle  and  of  the 
people  who  frequented  it. 

Here  is  a  page  out  of  Miss  Perry's  note-book: 
**  Dined  with  the  Miss  Berrys — Miss  Agnes 's 
own  dinner.  She  had  said,  some  days  before, 
she  meant  this  next  dinner  to  be  composed  of 
her  own  particular  friends.  I  am  proud  to  say 
[Miss  Perry  writes]  she  invited  Jane  (Mrs. 
Frederick  Elliot)  and  me.  The  party  also  in- 
cluded Kinglake,  Thackeray,  Bielke,  Mr. 
Rich,  and  the  beauteous  Louisa,  Lady  Water- 
ford.  .  .  .  Carlyle  was  discussed,  and  Miss 
Berry  asking  what  his  conversation  was  like, 
Kinglake  said,  'Ezekiel.  .  .  .' "  ^ 

»  Most  of  these  old  friends  used  to  come  again  in  the  same 


152  J5lacft5ticft  papers 

On  another  occasion  Miss  Perry  also  met 
Macaulay  and  Sydney  Smith,  and  she  de- 
scribes Sydney  Smith's  admirable  influence 
upon  Macaulay*s  conversation,  preventing  a 
monologue,  by  which  she  says  its  brilliance 
was  greatly  enchanced.  Miss  Berry,  in  one 
of  her  letters  to  the  Dowager  Countess  of 
Morley,  writes: 

**  Talking  of  Macaulay,  I  hope  you  have  got 
his  book  ...  of  all  the  seductive  books  you 
ever  read.  .  .  .  The  first  edition  of  3000  copies 
was  sold  in  the  first  week,  another  of  3000 
more  is  to  come  out  on  Thursday.  *' 

Mr.  Morley's  Life  of  Gladstone,  I  am  told, 
has  about  equalled  this  record. 

It  must  have  been  at  one  of  these  dinners 
that  poor  Sydney  Smith  said  of  his  own  talk : 

informal  way  to  Chesham  Place,  where  Miss  Perry  herself 
was  living  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Elliot,  her  brother-in-law  and 
sister.  How  plainly  it  all  rises  before  one!  Kate  Perry 
floating  into  the  room,  with  her  graceful  ways  and  wonderful 
wreaths  of  crisp,  waving,  auburn  hair;  and  the  good-looking 
master  of  the  house,  with  quick,  brilliant  alertness,  and  the 
kind  mistress  with  deep-set  grey  eyes.  It  was  a  kind,  amus- 
ing house,  full  of  welcome  and  interest  and  discussion,  with 
a  certain  amount  of  criticism  and  habit  of  the  world  to  make 
its  sympathy  amusing.  Lord  Lansdowne  used  to  go  there, 
and  Mr.  Kinglake  and  Sir  Henry  Taylor.  The  great  clan 
of  Elliot  used  to  be  seen  there,  and  most  of  the  persons  who, 


aaavs  ant)  Uqixcb  Bern?  153 

"I  have  not  even  the  privilege  which  be- 
longs to  every  Briton,  of  speaking  about  the 
weather,  without  a  roar  of  laughter  from  a  set 
of  foolish  fellows  who  suppose  every  word  I 
speak  is  a  joke." 

Here  is  one  of  the  lady's  reminiscences 
which  reminds  the  writer  of  an  odd  fashion 
which  she  can  remember  in  her  schoolroom 
days,  that  of  fashionably  immoderate  peals  of 
laughter,  which  took  the  place  of  the  impassive 
calm  of  the  present.  One  day,  when  Kate 
Perry  dined  there  alone.  Miss  Berry  told  cer- 
tain anecdotes  of  bygone  ladies  of  fashion. 
Lady  Mary  Coke  was  one  of  these,  and  she 
described  her  as  complaining  bitterly  of  the 
Empress  Maria  Theresa: — 

**I  remember  the  manner  that  creature 
treated  me,"  said  Lady  Mary  Coke.  "Why, 
what  did  she  do?"  asked  Miss  Berry.  "Do! 
why,  she  gave  me  for  dinner  chickens  black 
at  the  bone.  What  do  you  think  she  gave  me 
for  supper? — chickens  black  at  the  bone;  and 

in  those  days,  were  writing  and  reading  and  making  speeches; 
and  Lady  Theresa  Lewis  herself,  and  the  charming  Kent 
House  coterie,  and  Mr.  Spedding,  and  Mr.  Venables,  and 
hotd  Houghton,  and  all  the  philosophers. 


154  3Blacfe6ticft  papers 

what"  (raising  her  voice)  ''do  you  think  she 
gave  me  for  breakfast? — chickens  black  at  the 
bone!" 

By  this  time  Miss  Berry  said  she  herself  was 
in  such  fits  of  laughter  that  she  leant  up 
against  the  chimney-piece  and  hid  her  face  in 
her  hands,  and  Mrs.  Damer  coming  in  thought 
she  was  in  hysterics  or  that  Lady  Mary  had 
said  something  ofiensive.  All  Miss  Berry  could 
utter  was — pointing  at  Lady  Mary — "She  is 
mad ;  ask  her  what  she  had  to  eat  at  Lecid^. " 

There  is  a  charming  old  house,  Aubrey 
House  on  Campden  Hill,  where  an  impression 
of  its  former  mistress,  Lady  Mary  Coke,  is 
still  to  be  gained.  She  was  the  daughter  of 
the  Duke  of  Argyle.  Her  portrait  with  high- 
piled  locks  and  in  the  slim  flowing  robes  of 
Sir  Joshua's  period  is  hanging  in  the  room  she 
lived  in  and  devised — the  pretty  old-fashioned 
room  with  windows  opening  to  the  lawns 
through  which  the  lady  with  her  high  coijfe 
must  have  stepped.  Hither  came  Princess 
Amelia  day  after  day,  hither  came  the  guests 
from  Holland  House  hard  by,  when  the  com- 
pany overflowed. 


/Darp  anb  Uqwcs  Bctv^  155 

We  have  a  memorandum  of  something  Miss 
Kate  Perry  heard  at  the  Miss  Berrys'  one  day 
when  she  was  not  alone  with  them.  One  of  the 
gentlemen  present  had  just  met  the  Duke  of 
Wellington  at  dinner,  where  the  Duke  had 
been  speaking  of  Massena  and  of  Marshal 
Soult.  He  had  said:  "When  I  was  opposed 
to  Massena  I  had  neither  time  to  eat  or  to 
sleep  or  to  rest,  but  with  Marshal  Soult  before 
me  I  ate  and  slept  and  had  plenty  of  leisure. " 
Then  he  added:  ''All  the  same  he  was  a  great 
general ;  there  was  no  one  who  could  move  ten 
thousand  men  with  greater  skill  frord  one 
place  to  another  or  bear  on  a  point  with 
greater  rapidity,  but" — he  added — ''when  he 
got  the  men  there  he  did  not  know  what  to  do 
with  them!"  The  Duke  must  have  said  this 
more  than  once,  for  the  story  is  to  be  found 
in  other  memoirs  of  the  time.  Miss  Berry 
in  earlier  days  had  been  introduced  to  Napo- 
leon, and  her  memoirs  contain  an  amusing 
description  of  him  and  of  his  court.  Mrs. 
Dawson  Damer  had  gone  to  Paris  in  order  to 
present  a  bust  of  Fox  which  she  had  wished  to 
offer  to  him;  Miss  Berry  accompanied  her. 


156  JSlacftsticft  papers 

The  two  ladies  were  somewhat  disconcerted 
when  he  only  spoke  to  them  of  the  opera  and 
made  no  allusion  whatever  to  the  gift. 


IV 


Impressions  vary.  A  friend,  who  used  as 
a  very  young  girl  to  be  taken  to  Curzon  Street 
by  her  mother,  has  described  to  the  writer  the 
weary  hours  during  which  she  sat  there  silent 
in  a  comer,  while  the  elders  were  discoursing — 
*'not  laughing,"  she  said  in  answer  to  my 
question — "quite  the  contrary.  Miss  Berry 
on  her  carved  chair  sat  upright,  never  leaning 
back;  stout  and  dignified,  with  a  large  cap 
ornamented  by  a  bow  of  ribbon.  No  one  ever 
contradicted  her,  every  one  bowed  before  her 
and  accepted  her  views,  whatever  they  might 
be!"  So  much  for  the  impressions  of  fourteen 
impatiently  waiting  for  life ! 

Miss  Perry  notes  that  she  was  continually 
dining  and  sleeping  at  the  Berrys' — Miss 
Agnes 's  health  had  been  breaking  a  little,  but 
she  never  would  confess  she  was  not  well; 
with  her  complete  unselfishness  of  character, 


fJbav^  anb  Ugncs  Bertie  1 5  7 

her  thoughts  were  so  occupied  with  others 
that  she  had  no  time  to  devote  to  herself. 

"With  all  her  kind-heartedness  [the  Diary 
continues],  she  had  considerable  clearness  and 
acuteness  of  perception:  Thackeray  always 
maintained  she  was  the  most  naturally  gifted 
of  the  two  sisters.  At  times  she  had  an  irrita- 
bility of  manner  without  more  meaning  in  it 
than  the  rustling  of  the  leaves  of  an  old  elm 
tree  when  the  wind  passes  over  it.  On  one 
particular  evening  Mr.  Kinglake  was  interest- 
ing us  all  by  his  eloquent  description  of  the 
Greek  Church  and  its  magnificent  services ;  my 
carriage  was  announced,  I  could  hardly  tear 
myself  away.  *I  do  pity  you  very  much,' 
Miss  Agnes  said,  'for  having  to  leave  us;  we 
are  all  very  good  company  to-night.'  That 
evening  Miss  Agnes  appeared  in  better  health 
and  spirits  than  she  had  been  for  a  long  time ; 
but  the  next  day  her  health  began  visibly  to 
decline. 

"  She  lingered  on  till  the  middle  of  January. 
She  begged  her  friends  to  come  as  usual:  'It 
was  less  dull  for  poor  Mary,'  she  said.  The 
last  evening  of  her  life  she  asked  who  was 


158  JSlacftsttcft  papers 

below.  *Go  down/  she  said  to  Kate  Perry, 
*  and  give  my  love  to  them  all,  and  tell  my 
dear  friend  Eothen  not  to  be  anxious  about 
me.'  And  then,  in  the  early  morning,  her 
gentle  spirit  passed  away. 

*' After  a  time  the  light  was  again  placed  in 
the  doorway,  as  a  signal  that  Miss  Berry  could 
receive  her  friends  once  more.  They  gathered 
round,  but  the  light  burnt  dimly,  the  gaiety 
and  spirit  seemed  quenched  now  that  the  kind 
Agnes  was  gone.  We  all  knew  that  it  was 
the  union  of  the  two  sisters  which  formed  the 
peculiar  charm  of  these  evenings  in  Curzon 
Street." 

The  first  sentence  of  the  lecture  on  the 
"Four  Georges"  concerns  Miss  Mary  Berry: 

"A  very  few  years  since  [my  father  writes] 
I  knew  familiarly  a  lady  who  had  been  asked 
in  marriage  by  Horace  Walpole,  who  had  been 
patted  on  the  head  by  George  III.  This  lady 
had  knocked  at  Dr.  Johnson's  door,  liad  been 
intimate  with  Fox,  the  beautiful  Georgian, 
Duchess  of  Devonshire,  and  that  brilliant 
Whig  society  of  the  reign  of  George  III.;  had 


/Rarp  an^  Hgnes  Bern?  1 5  9 

known  the  Duchess  of  Queensberry,  the  pa- 
troness of  Gay  and  Prior,  the  admired  young 
beauty  of  the  Court  of  Queen  Anne.  I  often 
thought,  as  I  took  my  kind  old  friend's  hand, 
how  with  it  I  held  on  to  the  old  society  of 
wits.  .  .  .'' 

This  was  written  about  i860,  and  some 
years  before  that  time  my  father  had  taken 
us  as  children  one  day  to  the  little  house  in 
Mayfair  where  the  Miss  Berrys  had  lived 
since  1830 — that  No.  8  of  which  their  friend 
the  witty  Lady  Morley  wrote  so  affectionately, 
at  whose  door  it  was  a  pleasure  to  find  one- 
self knocking.  I  remember  my  father  knock- 
ing at  the  door  and  pointing  out  the  iron 
extinguishers,  on  either  side  of  it,  which  had 
served  for  the  torches  which  once  flared  to 
light  the  dazzling  past  company  that  used 
to  climb  the  narrow  staircase.  We  were 
shown  into  a  little  dim  drawing-room  giv- 
ing on  the  street,  and  thither  presently  came 
a  little  grey  lady;  a  tiny  woman,  daintily 
dressed  in  grey ;  she  wore  a  white  lace  cap  and 
a  white  muslin  tippet,  fastened  by  a  pink 
satin    knot;    she    seemed    grave    and    rather 


i6o  JSIacft5ticft  papers 

hurried  and  preoccupied — "My  sister  is  not 
well,  we  must  not  see  our  friends  to-day; 
please  come  again, "  she  said,  or  words  to  that 
effect,  and  then  as  she  spoke  she  looked  up  at 
my  father  with  a  gentle  confident  glance  and 
a  certain  expression  of  arch  composure  which 
I  think  I  can  still  recognise  in  the  portrait  of 
the  younger  of  the  girls  in  Zoffany's  picture. 

The  things  which  are,  certainly  gain  ex- 
traordinarily by  things  which  have  been — so 
far-reaching  a  chord  is  that  one  of  everyday 
life. 


No.  IX 
PARIS,  PRISMS,  AND  PRIMITIFS 

I 

Nature  makes  merry  occasionally,  and  so 
does  human  nature,  and  Blackstick  herself 
unbends.  On  Monday,  May  2d,  in  the  year  of 
our  Lord  1904,  there  was  a  soft  storm  of  rain 
followed  by  sunshine,  and  all  the  trees  in  the 
Tuileries,  and  in  the  gardens,  and  the  woods 
round  about  Paris,  came  out.  They  burst 
into  blinding-sweet  green  and  gold;  the  lilacs 
followed  with  their  fragrant  buds,  all  the 
violets  and  pansies  rose  from  the  darkness  into 
light,  white  pinks  began  to  blossom.  Every- 
where the  streets  were  garlanded,  the  people 
went  about  carrying  posies  in  honour  of  the 
spring.  The  very  funerals  going  by  were 
great  masses  of  beautiful  flowers  and  wreaths. 


i62  3Blacft6ttcft  papers 

lovely  tall  pyres  of  roses  spreading  fragrance. 
The  scentless  daffodils  of  England  were  not 
so  much  in  vogue,  so  it  seemed,  as  more  fra- 
grant flowers;  though  to  be  sure  bountiful 
bunches  of  blue  forget-me-nots  and  purple 
pansies  were  to  be  bought  for  a  few  pence  at 
street  comers,  where  the  old  sat  dispensing  the 
nosegays  and  the  yoimg  came  to  buy  and  to 
carry  them  off. 

Blackstick  sometimes  travels  under  the 
name  of  P.  M.,  with  a  companion  who  is  not 
yet  twenty  thousand  years  old,  and  who  shall 
be  A.  M.  for  the  occasion.  These  wanderers 
frequent  a  little  hostel  in  a  street  whose  very 
stones  and  doorways  seem  for  P.  M.  dressed 
with  rosemary;  A.  M.  knows  of  other  delight- 
ful places  and  riverside  comers;  but  with  or 
without  sweet  herbs  to  recall  the  past,  it  is 
impossible  not  to  love  the  present  in  this 
merry  little  oasis  of  the  Rue  St.  Roch.  At 
either  end  of  the  quiet  street  the  stream  passes 
along  two  great  thoroughfares,  whence  the 
sounds  that  reach  one,  the  steady  tramp  of 
the  horses,  the  jangle  of  the  omnibus  bells, 
the   yelling   of   motors,   the   trumpetings   of 


parts,  iprlsm5,  anb  primtttts  163 

bicyclists,  all  make  a  distant  chorus  which 
somehow  suggests  an  extra  sense  of  rest  to  the 
the  narrow  street  where  St.  Roch  and  St. 
Romain  unite  to  give  their  friendly  shelter. 

The  owner  of  the  hotel,  the  old  friend  of 
many  of  those  who  come  there,  adds  a  certain 
character  and  a  personal  feeling  to  the  estab- 
lishment, and  to  this  his  guests  respond.  Not 
long  ago  a  traveller,  after  twenty-five  years, 
came  (as  people  did  in  the  Old  Testament  and 
in  illuminated  missals)  carrying  a  silver  cup 
in  his  bag  to  commemorate  the  friendly 
connection.  .  .  . 

P.  M.  and  A.  M.,  looking  out  from  their 
third-floor  windows,  can  see  across  to  those 
two  big  boulevards  of  which  mention  has  been 
made.  The  Tuileries  Gardens  spread  greenly 
beyond  the  Rue  de  Rivoli  as  far  as  the  distant 
quais,  which  are  crossed  and  recrossed  by  their 
crowds  of  tiny  figures.  Looking  to  the  east 
they  can  almost  count  the  very  steps  of  the 
great  church  which  has  remained  firm  while 
so  many  kings  and  emperors  and  revolutions 
have  passed  their  way.  There  stands  St. 
Roch  stately  and  unmoved  from  year  to  year. 


i64  3BIacft5ticft  papet5 

blessing  the  infants  and  the  young  communi- 
cants, and  the  new-married  couples  and  the 
mourning  corteges  as  they  each  come  up  in 
turn.  From  these  upper  windows  A.  M.  and 
P.  M.  seem  to  live  the  very  life  of  the  city,  not 
only  in  its  outer  aspects,  but  in  its  domestici- 
ties, as  they  survey  the  little  street  with  its 
varying  gleams  and  humours.  Look  at  the 
hairdresser  opposite  on  the  pavement  in  front 
of  his  shop  matching  his  client's  hair  in  the 
brighter  light  of  the  street,  while  various 
friends  volubly  assist.  Look  at  the  pretty, 
pale  washerwoman  who  comes  to  her  door 
for  a  breath;  a  lady  from  the  hotel  itself 
crosses  over  in  slippers  to  fetch  some  snowy 
garment  which  has  been  exquisitely  starched 
and  gauffered.  Look  at  the  greengrocer's  man 
washing  his  carrots  which  flash  with  colour 
in  the  slanting  sun  rays,  while  the  owner 
of  the  shop,  sitting  on  a  straw  chair  with  an 
ink-bottle  carefully  adjusted  into  a  sack  of 
potatoes,  is  writing  his  accounts  in  a  book. 
The  people  at  work,  the  people  at  play,  are  all 
interested  and  interesting.  They  are  primitifs 
in  their  way  no  less  than  their  predecessors 


Paris,  iprtsms,  ano  ptimitits  165 

depicted  in  the  Pavilion  de  Marsan  yonder: 
the  little  schoolboys  in  their  capes  and  pointed 
hoods,  and  neat  bare  legs,  as  they  fly  past;  the 
employes  and  professors  as  they  cross  the 
road  with  neat,  rapid  strides;  the  young  girls 
as  they  pass  stepping  gaily  in  time,  arm  in 
arm,  as  if  they  were  dancing. 

Besides  the  springtime  it  is  also  Confirma- 
tion time.  The  whole  town  is  scattered  with 
little  brides  of  ten  and  twelve  years  old,  in 
white  veils,  white  shoes,  white  sashes,  ac- 
companied by  the  proud  parents  trudging 
alongside;  the  father  is  generally  importantly 
got  up  with  a  large  and  shining  hat  and  boots 
to  match ;  the  mother  may  be  stout  and  weary- 
footed  from  some  neighbouring  outskirt  of 
Paris,  but  she  wears  her  bonnet  with  an  air, 
and  is  usually  carrying  a  basket.  Other  par- 
ents more  prosperous,  or  less  provident,  go 
off  to  the  caf6  at  the  comer  of  the  street  and 
settle  themselves  at  little  tables  to  feast  with 
their  children  off  cakes  and  ale.  The  little 
bride  is  the  centre  of  the  party,  or  the  con- 
scious little  boy  in  his  short  white  trousers 
and  fringed  white  ribbons.     While  the  holi- 


1 66  J5lacft6ttcft  papers 

day-makers  sit  feasting  the  workers  pass  by; 
perhaps  it  is  a  man  and  his  dog  yoked  to- 
gether to  a  wooden  cart,  or  a  long  waggon 
crawling  on,  carrying  trunks  of  trees  from  the 
forest  to  the  woodcutters'  yard.  Perhaps  a 
motor  comes  next  with  its  casquetted  driver, 
and  the  smart  feathered  lady  within ;  .  .  .  the 
lazy  P.  M.  leans  from  the  window,  watching  a 
shabby  man  who  is  walking  up  the  middle  of 
the  street  carrying  an  exquisite  wreath  of  roses 
carefully  before  him;  but  A.  M.  calls  her  away, 
for  the  Primitifs  are  to  be  visited  and  the 
Prisms  must  wait. 


II 


The  H6tel  St.  Romain  has  the  additional 
advantage  of  being  quite  close  to  the  much- 
frequented  shrine  of  early  saints  lately  re- 
vealed to  us  by  the  spirited  director  of  the 
Biblioth^que  Nationale  and  his  colleagues, 
and  displayed  for  our  advantage  in  the  Pa- 
vilion de  Marsan,  which  is  the  last  addition 
to  the  glorious  old  palaces  of  the  Louvre. 
This   fine  gallery   is  light   and   strong,   and 


pads,  prisms,  an^  pttntftits  167 

elegantly  built,  with  handsome  staircases  and 
stately  rooms  on  different  levels,  and  with 
landings  which  give  great  variety  and  char- 
acter, both  of  which  are  often  wanting  to  state 
galleries.  How  well  one  knows  the  look  of 
them,  that  turnstile  at  the  entrance  and  then 
the  stone  stairs,  and  the  short  room,  and  the 
long  room  out  of  it — how  monotonous  and 
cut  to  pattern  they  are  apt  to  be.  This, 
however,  is  a  beautiful  home  of  art,  rather 
than  a  gallery;  nothing  is  crowded,  every- 
thing is  in  its  place,  and  the  walls  are  lined 
with  soft  coloured  stuffs  of  delicate  shades 
admirably  adapted  to  their  purpose.  The 
Pavilion  de  Marsan  is  near  the  opening  of  the 
Rue  de  Rivoli.  Two  or  three  flags  and  a 
couple  of  sentries  guard  the  entrance.  Also 
the  portrait  of  a  mediaeval  lady  delicately 
tinted  and  securely  framed  invites  the  passers- 
by  to  enter  and  to  enjoy  the  feast  within;  to 
enjoy  the  beautiful  things  which  were  first 
recorded  for  our  use  when  other  Edwards  were 
ruling  in  England,  and  when  Dante  was  walk- 
ing the  streets  of  Florence.  There  hang  the 
pictures  on  broad  walls,  of  delicate  sage- green. 


i68  Blacftsttcft  papers 

or  varied  by  soft  strawberry  hangings  of  silk 
setting  off  carvings  and  old  frames  and  faded 
gildings.  The  pictures  have  come  hither 
from  far  and  near,  across  seas  and  centuries; 
some  have  lived  all  these  years  concealed 
under  other  names  than  their  own,  and  are 
only  now  discovered  to  be  themselves  by 
the  experienced  experts. 

Paris  and  Prisms  are  familiar  to  us  all. 
Primitifs  are  to  a  certain  degree  a  new  revela- 
tion of  French  inspiration,  and  this  charming 
school  is  now  for  the  first  time  catalogued, 
organised,  and  collected  from  afar,  brought 
from  convents  and  churches  and  distant 
country  places,  by  the  care  of  Monsieur 
Bouchot  and  his  patriotic  colleagues  the 
Frenchmen  of  to-day.  We  have  seen  some 
of  the  pictures  before — ^we  have  known  them 
under  other  names,  such  as  Van  Eycks  and 
Ghirlandajos.  Now  under  their  true  flag  they 
appear,  and  in  their  true  nationality,  and  as 
they  rise  before  us,  one  by  one,  each  seems 
to  be  a  proof  of  that  which  is  yet  to  be  made 
certain.  Time  has  a  magnetism  of  its  own, 
for  us  beings  of  an  hour,  who  stand  before  the 


Paris,  prisms,  anb  primitits  169 

work  which  the  painter  placed  upon  his  easel 
six  or  seven  centuries  ago.  There  is  a  picture 
belonging  to  the  Church  of  the  Madeleine 
in  Paris — No.  37  in  the  catalogue.  It  has 
been  ascribed  to  Van  Eyck  and  Albert  Diirer 
in  turn.  Experts  may  disagree.  The  work 
speaks  to  us  still  as  it  might  have  done  had 
we  been  there  when  the  nameless  artist  first 
painted  his  vision  upon  the  panel;  and  we 
still  respond  to  the  noble,  sweet  sentiment,  to 
the  exquisite  care  and  detail.  The  Virgin 
kneels  in  the  long  cathedral  aisle;  she  is 
sumptuous  in  her  damask  robes,  simple  in 
her  modest  majesty ;  a  cup  with  lilies  stands 
on  the  pavement  at  her  knee,  a  missal  lies 
open  on  the  carved  reading-desk;  an  angel, 
with  noble  open  looks  and  great  wings,  kneels 
before  her  from  some  inner  shrine.  The 
angel,  too,  is  robed,  and  with  upraised  left 
hand  he  seems  to  emphasise  his  message.  .  .  . 
The  rays  of  light  stream  through  a  circular 
window  overhead,  each  column  is  traced 
with  care,  each  complicated  arch  is  in  its 
place,  each  shadow  falls  in  exquisite  beauty 
and  perfection.      No  one    is    near,    though 


I70  3Blacft0ttcF?  papers 

figures  are  to  be  seen  at  the  far  end  of  the 
vista. 

Painted  yesterday,  the  picture  would  be 
beautiful  and  touch  one's  admiration ;  coming 
to  us  through  the  centuries  it  brings  added 
mystery,  and  reality,  too.  Perhaps  angels 
were  really  to  be  seen  crossing  among  the 
columns  of  the  great  cathedrals  in  those 
days;  perhaps  in  those  times  ladies  knelt  like 
queens,  wearing  royal  robes.  The  cathedrals 
are  still  there;  the  carvings  are  still  to  be 
admired — the  quaint  gurgoyles,  the  fanciful 
decorations,  bats  and  birds  and  exquisite 
leaves  carved  in  the  stonework;  and  beyond 
it  all,  as  you  look,  you  somehow  feel  that  the 
very  spirit  of  Reverence  is  there. 

"C'est  tr^s  curieux, "  says  the  little  French 
lady,  shrugging  her  shoulders.  She  is  a  pretty 
little  lady  enough,  with  frills  and  furbelows; 
her  husband  has  a  ribbon  in  his  coat.  The 
people  all  about  seem  educated  and  well-bred. 
The  women  of  the  present,  in  their  elaborate 
fanciful  dresses,  are  scarcely  less  dainty  than 
the  saints  and  queens  and  Magdalenes  they 
have  come  to  see. 


parts,  prisms,  arib  prtmitits  171 

The  French  couples  talk  to  each  other  with 
their  pretty  and  rapid  intonation.  A  nun  in  a 
dress  which  might  have  come  bodily  out  of 
one  of  the  pictures  goes  by,  alone,  carefully 
marking  her  catalogue.  In  a  doorway  under 
the  mitred  head  of  some  saintly  bishop  the 
guardian  of  the  place  sits  nodding  peacefully. 

"C'est  du  Ghirlandajo  pur  et  simple,"  says 
an  Elegante,  gazing  at  one  of  Maitre  de  Mou- 
lins's  masterpieces.  And  while  the  human 
beings  pass  by  discoursing,  discriminating, 
the  goodly  company  of  the  past  remains  in- 
different, altogether  oblivious  of  our  presence 
.  .  .  reading,  praying,  pondering;  only  a  few 
of  the  martyrs  look  somewhat  conscious,  and 
no  wonder.  With  what  stately  dignity  yon- 
der saint  advances  across  the  open  place 
carrying  his  own  glorified  head  which  the 
executioner  has  just  cut  from  his  body,  or  let 
us  admire  the  gracious  women  with  their 
palms  and  jagged  wheels,  or  Jean  Perreal's 
slim  and  self-respecting  lamb  on  its  exquisite 
spindle  legs. 

"Where  does  he  come  from,  that  delicious 
master,  whom  for  the  moment  we  are  obliged 


172  JSlacftsticft  papers 

to  call  by  the  ambiguous  name  of  le  Maitre 
de  Moulins? "  says  the  author  of  the  catalogue. 
"From  Paris,  from  Tours,  from  Lyons,  from 
Moulins?  Did  he  see  Italy?"  asks  M.  Lafen- 
estre,  the  writer  of  the  admirable  introduction. 

"Par  pitie  Messieurs  les  archivistes  nos 
amis,"  he  cries,  "un  petit  document,  un  tout 
petit  document,  s'il  vous  plait,  qui  nous 
permette  de  saluer  cet  homme  glorieux,  de 
son  vrai  nom!" 

Entering  what  one  might  call  the  Salle 
carr^e  of  the  Primitif  Exhibition,  there  before 
one  is  a  whole  wall  covered  with  the  works  of 
this  so-called  "Maitre  de  Moulins."  We  are 
attracted  at  once  by  the  master's  great  trip- 
tych, which  hangs  in  the  place  of  honour  in  the 
centre,  and  which  the  catalogue  attributes  to 
the  year  1498. 

In  the  middle  panel  stands  the  Virgin  with 
the  Child,  surrounded  by  angels,  and  as  the 
painter  is  fond  of  doing,  he  has  represented 
the  Holy  Mother  as  she  is  described  in  the 
Apocalypse;  the  crescent  moon  is  at  her  feet 
and  the  sunshine  with  which  she  is  robed 
seems  to  radiate  from  out  of  this  beautiful 


pari5,  prisms,  ant)  iprimittts  173 

picture.  The  grouping  and  painting  of  the 
attendant  angels  are  very  wonderful,  not 
only  for  their  value  in  the  whole  composition, 
but  because  each  angel  is  a  masterpiece. 
They  stand  with  solemn  eyes,  directed  to- 
wards the  Holy  Child,  their  hands  clasped  in 
fervent  adoration.  On  the  panels  on  either 
side  St.  Peter  and  St.  Anne  mount  guard  and 
present  the  donors  of  the  picture  to  the  holy 
company  within. 

Another  picture,  a  Nativity  by  the  same 
master,  hangs  near.  The  catalogue  tells  us 
that  this  painting  was  presented  by  the 
Cardinal  Jean  Rolin  (we  see  his  portrait  in  the 
picture  itself)  to  the  Cathedral  of  Autun,  and 
that  for  more  than  four  hundred  years  it  has 
hung  in  the  iveche  until  now  brought  to  Paris 
for  the  first  time,  with  the  rare  result  that  we 
find  it  after  four  centuries  exactly  as  it  was 
left  by  Maitre  de  Moulins. 

The  feeling  and  spirit  of  this  master's  work 
remind  one  of  some  of  the  illtiminated  missals 
at  the  Biblioth^que  Nationale  close  by.  The 
landscapes  of  soft  low  hills  and  green  valleys 
are  strangely  like  those  distances  that  Fouquet 


174  JSlac[?5ticft  papers 

loved  to  paint,  and  which  through  him  we  have 
got  to  know  and  understand,  and  it  is  very 
wonderful  to  find  that  what  one  had  imagined 
to  be  the  fairy  land  of  Fouquet's  brain  is  no 
fairy  land  but  reality:  France  herself,  only 
waiting  now,  as  then,  for  her  sons  to  come  and 
paint  her  gracious  aspects. 

"Oh,  what  a  power  has  whyte  simplicity!'* 
and  this  line  of  Keats's  seems  to  embody  in 
words  what  the  Maitre  de  Moulins  effects  in 
his  most  beautiful  work  of  art. 

The  Virgin  kneels  before  the  Holy  Child  in 
the  centre;  on  her  right  are  St.  Joseph  and  two 
angels  (we  recognise  them  again  in  the  trip- 
tych); a  little  to  the  background,  the  donor 
also  kneels,  and  a  charming  touch  of  nature  is 
the  introduction  of  the  Cardinal's  favourite 
fox-terrier  on  the  hem  of  his  robe. 

"Une  particularite, "  says  the  catalogue, 
"qui  ferait  reconnaitre  le  Maitre  entre  tous 
les  autres,  c'est  la  severite  des  physionomies, 
Tabsence  de  sourire  des  Anges  et  de  la  Vierge,  '* 
and  this  holds  true  even  in  his  portraits. 
Take,  for  instance,  Une  dame  pr^senUe  par 
la  Madelaine,  a  beautiful  though  rather  grim 


parts,  prisms,  ant)  prtmittts  175 

achievement.  P.  M.  admires,  and  A.  M.  de- 
clares it  is  like  Memling  in  the  scheme  of 
colour,  the  posing  of  the  figures,  but  the  fact 
remains  that  the  resemblance  is  but  chance, 
and  the  spirit  is  French,  and  that  no  one  but 
a  Frenchman  painting  in  France  could  have 
produced  such  a  portrait. 

We  step  into  the  cool  ante-hall,  where, 
facing  us,  is  Froment's  famous  altar-piece,  Le 
Buisson  Ardent.  This  picture,  with  many 
of  the  others  here  exhibited,  was  attributed 
to  the  Flemish  school,  even  to  Van  Eyck  him- 
self, because  of  the  remarkable  landscape  in 
the  centre  panel.  However,  searching  among 
the  archives  of  "Bouches  du  Rh6ne, "  M. 
Blancard  discovered  documents  which  prove 
that  Le  Buisson  Ardent  was  painted  by 
Nicholas  Froment  at  the  command  of  King 
Rene  for  the  cathedral  at  Aix,  and  that  for 
so  doing  he  received  the  sum  of  30  ^cus! 

High  among  the  branches  of  a  spreading 
tree,  a  gracefiil  and  lovely  Virgin  is  sitting 
in  state,  while  imdemeath,  far  beyond  the 
boughs,  lies  an  exquisite  landscape.  On  one 
of  the  wings  is  the  portrait  of  King  Ren6  him- 


176  J5lacft5ticft  papers 

self  with  his  three  saints,  a  fine  group  in 
gorgeous  array.  On  the  other  wing  is  his 
queen,  the  daughter  of  Louis  XI.,  Queen 
Jeanne  de  Laval,  who  is  also  presented  to  the 
Virgin  by  three  protecting  saints. 

Not  unlike  other  kings  and  queens,  Ren6 
and  Jeanne  seem  to  have  had  the  same  pre- 
dilection for  being  constantly  painted  by  the 
same  hand.  There  are  two  separate  minia- 
tures of  them  by  Froment,  in  which  the  head 
of  the  King  is  especially  excellent  in  its  way. 

One  might  almost  say  that  portraiture  was 
an  inherent  gift  among  the  French  painters, 
and  it  is  easy  to  see  how  the  exquisite  pic- 
tures of  the  sixteenth  century  which  we  find 
upstairs  in  this  same  collection  belong  by 
descent  to  the  great  masters  of  the  fourteenth 
and  fifteenth  centuries. 

The  actual  school  of  Nicholas  Froment 
leaves  one  a  little  cold.  ''Fort  curieux, "  as 
the  lady  said,  is  also  the  criticism  of  the  cata- 
logue concerning  the  picture  of  the  saint 
carrying  his  head  in  his  hands,  and  this  is 
really  all  that  can  be  said  of  Froment 's  pupils. 

Near  by  are  two  pictures  by  another  Primi- 


Paris,  prisms,  an&  primitits         177 

tif,  Jean  Perreal?  (The  questioning  mark  is 
out  of  the  catalogue.)  This  artist  has  a 
charming  gift  for  details,  and  in  The  Mys- 
tical Marriage  of  St.  Catherine  the  eye 
dwells  with  real  pleasure  upon  the  dainty 
architecture,  the  delicate  trimming  of  St. 
Catherine's  robe,  and  all  the  other  charming 
belongings  of  the  holy  company.  The  heads 
of  the  figures  are  admirable;  but  the  painter 
seems  to  have  been  unable  to  realise  the 
human  body,  and  the  figures  of  the  Virgin 
and  St.  Catherine  are  weak  and  feeble.  An- 
other painting  of  the  Virgin  and  two  donors 
by  this  same  Perreal  is  a  disappointment ;  the 
Virgin  is  beautiful  and  wonderfully  painted, 
but  the  donors  so  ill  executed  that  they  spoil 
what  would  otherwise  have  been  a  remarkable 
work. 

Fouquet,  Enguerrand  Charonton,  and  what 
one  is  obliged  to  call  for  want  of  more  definite 
names  the  schools  of  Touraine,  of  Provence,  of 
Bourgogne,  are  indeed  words  to  conjure  with, 
for  they  embody  in  sound  this  great  school 
which  now  for  the  first  time  receives  its  proper 
recognition;  nor  must  we  leave  the  Pavilion 


1 7  8  BlacftsticF?  papers 

de  Marsan  without  an  act  of  homage  to  the 
great  Maitre  de  Flemalle  who  painted  about 
1430,  fifty  years  before  le  Maitre  de  Moulins. 
There  are  three  pictures  of  his,  each  a  master- 
piece, and  each  beyond  criticism.  Perhaps 
Mr.  Salting's  Virgin  and  Child  in  an  interior 
is  the  most  beautiful  for  colour;  but  The 
Adoration  of  the  Shepherds  is  the  finest  pic- 
ture of  the  three,  for  in  it  there  is  perfection 
of  noble  thought  as  well  as  perfection  of  exe- 
cution. In  a  thatched  hut  with  angels  hover- 
ing above,  the  Virgin  is  kneeling  in  adoration 
before  the  Holy  Child.  St.  Joseph,  holding 
a  candle,  which  he  shields  from  the  wind  with 
his  right  hand,  kneels,  and  the  shepherds,  in 
a  group,  stand  hesitating  at  the  open  door. 
Two  women  are  in  attendance  on  the  Virgin, 
and  are  placed  to  her  left  so  that  the  Holy 
Child  lies  encircled  by  noble  figures,  and  then 
surrounding  all  is  a  great  peaceful  landscape 
with  the  rising  sun  just  appearing  over  the 
mountain-top;  the  light  is  cool,  grey,  and 
mysterious,  as  it  is  to  be  seen  just  before  the 
sun  shoots  out  his  rays  to  warm  and  cheer  the 
world. 


pads,  prisms,  ant)  prtmittts  179 

The  third  picture  of  Maitre  de  Flemalle^s  is 
called  The  Glorious  Virgin^  St.  Peter,  St. 
Augustifiy  and  a  Monk.  This  is  a  little  pic- 
ture which  reminds  one  of  Van  Eyck,  and, 
though  the  picture  is  small,  it  has  all  his 
qualities  of  distance,  breadth,  and  nobility 
of  conception. 


m 


Before  going  up-stairs  to  the  portraits  on 
the  higher  floor  you  may,  if  you  will,  rest  for  a 
minute,  in  the  ante-hall  hung  with  its  woven 
tapestries  wreathed  by  a  gay  garland  of  em- 
broidered fun  and  grace;  they  chiefly  repre- 
sent the  fetes  of  Henri  III.  Look  at  the 
courtiers  assembled;  while  that  ominous 
queen-mother  sits  in  the  centre  of  them  all  in 
deepest  mourning.  Look  at  the  barges  where 
the  nobles  and  the  king  and  some  frail  and 
brilliant  Anne  or  misnamed  Diana  are  as- 
sembled, while  the  huge  fish  with  waving  fins 
and  a  glorified  tail  beats  the  air,  and  the  people 
dance  on  the  distant  banks  and  the  music 
plays.     Henry  of  Navarre  is  looking  on  in 


i8o  J5lacftsticft  papers 

gallant  pourpoint  and  ruffle;  so  are  other 
well-known  figures  and  faces  out  of  Alexandre 
Dumas.  Who  are  the  real  historians?  For 
France  shall  we  quote  Guizot  and  de  Tocque- 
ville  and  d'Aubign6,  or  rather  Alexandre 
Dumas,  who  has  made  the  Fronde  to  rise 
once  more  and  Louis  XIV.  and  his  court  to 
exist  again? 

In  the  upper  gallery,  where  the  portraits  are 
hanging,  all  our  old  friends  out  of  The  Three 
Musketeers  and  the  Dame  de  Monsoreau 
are  to  be  recognised.  There  they  are,  with 
their  handsome  profiles  and  high  delicate 
features,  set  off  by  their  ruffles  and  feathered 
toques,  the  dashing  chivalrous  cut-and-come- 
again  heroes,  the  Balafr6,  the  Guises,  Henri 
Quatre,  the  noble  Coligny  and  his  son-in-law 
Teligny,  and  there  also  are  the  conspirators, 
the  lurid  villains  and  villainesses — Mayenne 
the  persecutor  of  Chicot,  and  those  terrible 
women  Catherine  and  Marie  de  M^dicis,  and 
the  scheming  Chevreuse  and  Diane  de  Poic- 
tiers,  and  the  wild  friends  of  Henri  III.,  Anne, 
Due  de  Joyeuse,  and  the  rest  of  them,  with 
their  cropped  heads  and  lordly  airs.     Here, 


patt0,  prtems,  anb  prtmttits  iSi 

too,  is  Mazarin,  who,  it  will  be  remembered 
with  satisfaction,  was  lifted  bodily,  schemes, 
robes,  and  all,  over  the  wall  into  captivity, 
by  the  strong  arm  of  Porthos.  The  portraits 
seem  to  greet  us  or  taunt  us  as  we  go  by,  so 
convincing  and  life-like  are  they.  Their  lim- 
ners belonged  to  a  time  when  art  reigned 
supreme,  a  time  of  which  the  princes  and 
nobles  still  live  on,  thanks  to  the  Clouets,  to 
Holbein,  and  his  compeers  who  worked  on 
quietly,  with  steady  hands  and  keen  eyes 
reproducing  every  line  and  aspect  of  the  hand- 
some dazzling  gallants  before  them.  The  por- 
traits tell  their  own  history;  but  it  is  only  of 
late  that  the  compositions  and  altar-pieces 
have  been  docketed  and  named  and  dated. 
Only  how  can  they  be  dated?  A  beautiful 
picture  belongs  to  the  great  kingdom  of  art; 
and  its  name,  be  it  Flemish  or  Burgundian, 
its  date,  be  it  one  century  or  another,  adds 
but  little  to  its  revelation. 

M.  Laborde,  in  his  interesting  work,  La 
Renaissance  des  Arts  a  la  Cour  de  France,  gives 
a  graphic  description  of  the  duties  of  the  Court 
painter  in  the  sixteenth  century.     The  post 


1 82  3Blacftsttcfe  papers 

was  first  instituted  in  the  Middle  Ages,  when 
it  was  ordained  that  the  painter  was  to  be 
classed  with  the  servants,  and  to  come  in  rank 
after  the  ''palefreniers"  and  the  "galopins  de 
cuisine";  but  with  the  march  of  civilisation 
the  painter  was  promoted,  and  in  the  six- 
teenth century  ranked  with  the  poets,  musi- 
cians, and  fools  of  the  Court.  Briefly  speaking, 
the  painter's  duty  was  to  do  everything,  and 
he  might  be  called  from  the  stable,  where  he 
sat  decorating  the  royal  saddles  with  designs, 
to  the  kitchen  to  put  finishing  touches  to  the 
ornamented  dishes  which  were  to  be  set 
before  the  king. 

Besides  being  painter  to  the  Court,  Jean 
Clouet  obtained,  through  his  intelligence  and 
ready  wit,  the  appointment  of  Valet  de 
Chambre  du  Roy,  sl  post  much  sought  after,  as 
it  meant  personal  and  real  intercourse  with 
the  king. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  it  was  from  holding 
this  post  that  Clouet  became  so  intimate  with 
the  Court.  One  can  see  from  his  portraits 
that  his  sitters  were  his  friends,  not  merely 
models;  that  Clouet  knew  the  ins  and  outs  of 


pati5,  prisms,  anb  ptimttifs  183 

their  characters,  and  in  his  inimitable  way 
expressed,  as  far  as  plastic  art  could  make  it 
possible,  almost  all  that  there  was  to  be  said 
of  the  brilliant  assemblage. 

"Maistre  Janet  Clouet  painctre  et  valet  de 
chambre  ordinaire  du  Roy"  was  his  full  title. 
M.  Laborde  describes  how  it  was  then  the 
custom  to  alter  names,  and  that  Jehan  Clouet 
was  turned  into  Jehannet  Clouet,  and  then 
into  plain  Janet.  Janet,  imlike  other  follow- 
ers of  the  brush,  was  well  paid  for  his  work, 
and  he  found  in  Francis  a  devoted  and  liberal 
master.  He  succeeded  Jehan  Bourdichon  as 
Court  painter.  His  reputation  was  great,  and, 
besides  private  portraits,  he  had  all  the  official 
portraits  to  paint.  One  gets  an  idea  of  the 
hurry  and  anxiety  then  shown  to  possess 
Janet's  work,  by  a  bill  owing  to  Loys  du 
Moulin  which  has  been  preserved.  It  is  for 
diligences  and  post-horses,  for  going  from 
Blois  to  Paris,  and  Paris  to  Blois,  to  fetch  a 
portrait  by  the  celebrated  painter. 

Janet  was  a  great  deal  at  Fontainebleau 
with  the  king,  and  in  an  old  description  of  the 
Palais  we  read  that  numbers  of  Clouet 's  por- 


1 84  J5lacft6ticft  ipapers 

traits  hung  on  the  walls,  and  there  they  seem 
to  have  remained  until  Louis  Philippe  had 
them  removed  to  his  historical  museum  at 
Versailles. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  things  about 
Janet  is  that  he  stoutly  resisted  the  Italian 
influence  which  Francis  I.  so  admired,  and, 
while  Primatice  and  Rosso  reigned  supreme, 
Clouet  worked  quietly  on  his  own  lines,  know- 
ing well  what  his  own  work  was  worth.  Por- 
traits at  this  time  were  the  craze  of  Europe, 
and  it  is  through  Janet  they  became  the 
fashion  in  France.  Holbein,  too,  was  at  work 
in  England.  There  was  no  self-respecting 
family  that  had  not  been  painted,  and,  as  the 
fashion  grew,  books  of  portraits  were  sold,  and 
no  salon  was  considered  complete  without  one 
of  these  on  the  table.  These  likenesses  took 
the  place  of  our  present  snapshots  and  Daily 
Graphics.  They  were  often  of  great  use; 
sovereigns  and  princes  wishing  to  marry  sent 
for  the  pictures  of  the  most  suitable  princesses 
in  Europe  in  order  to  choose  the  most  beauti- 
ful among  them. 

Jean  Clouet  was  succeeded  by  his  son  Fran- 


parts,  prisms,  anb  iprtmittfs  185 

^ois,  who,  though  not  nearly  so  great  a  painter, 
enjoyed  an  even  greater  popularity.  Fran- 
cois's work  was  only  to  follow  in  the  steps 
of  his  father,  who  had  created  the  style,  and, 
as  we  have  already  said,  resisted  Italian 
influence. 

Francois  became  Court  painter  in  1545. 
Laborde  tells  us  that  his  first  duty  was  to  go 
down  to  Rambouillet  to  take  a  cast  of  the 
dead  king  for  an  effigy,  and  his  bill  is  quoted, 
which  goes  into  minute  details,  ''  Despense  de 
bouche  "  figuring  principally  among  the  items. 

It  was  to  Frangois  that  Ronsard  wrote  the 
long  and  exquisite  poem  which  begins:  '*Pein 
moy,  Janet,  pein  moy  je  te  suplie,"  and  the 
rest  of  the  Pleiade  also  offered  up  verses  in  the 
praise  of  this  charming  master. 

As  an  example  of  the  passion,  or  rather 
frenzy,  for  portraits  which  existed  in  those 
days,  Brant6me  tells  a  story  of  how  Catherine 
de  M6dicis,  being  at  Lyons,  went  to  see  the 
studio  of  a  painter  called  Lyon — some  of  his 
work  is  still  to  be  seen  in  this  collection — and 
to  her  astonishment  found  upon  his  easel  the 
most  beautiful  portrait  imaginable  of  herself 


1 86  IBIacftBttck  ipapers 

as  a  young  woman.  She  gazed  in  rapture  and 
amazement,  and  could  not  remove  her  eyes 
for  pleasure.  Her  bewilderment  was  lessened 
when  the  painter  confessed  that,  though  he 
had  never  seen  her  Majesty  before,  he  had 
beheld  a  reproduction  of  her  portrait,  and  had 
been  so  struck  by  it  that  he  determined  to 
paint  another-  for  himself.  It  is  also  known 
that  Francis  I.  sent  Titian  a  drawing  of  him- 
self, and  requested  the  artist  to  paint  his  por- 
trait from  it. 

The  secret  of  the  Clouets'  art  seems  to  have 
died  with  Francois,  whose  work,  though  in- 
ferior, is  no  less  alive  than  his  father*s.  An 
interesting  book  of  reproductions,  edited  by 
Lord  Ronald  Gower,  from  the  Earl  of  Carlisle  *s 
collection  at  Castle  Howard,  contains  hund- 
reds of  the  portraits  of  the  people  we  read 
of  at  that  time,  beginning  with  the  royal  house 
of  Valois  itself.  Is  it  chance  or  is  it  the  singu- 
lar vividness  of  the  Clouets'  impressions  which 
gives,  even  to  the  children's  portraits  of  the 
later  Valois,  a  strange  tiger-like  expression? 
The  pale  arching  eyes,  low  frowning  brows, 
seem  to  foretell  the  future.     In  the  drawing  of 


parts,  ipttsms,  an^  ptimitits  187 

Catherine  de  Medicis  this  sinister  look  is  to 
be  seen. 

Francis  I.,  with  his  well-known  features, 
and  his  troubles,  and  his  magnificence,  has 
always  been  something  of  a  favourite  with  the 
world.  His  stately  buildings,  his  own  odd 
yet  distinguished  looks,  have  made  his  per- 
sonality so  familiar  to  us  that  he  has  almost 
become  a  friend,  and  we  refuse  to  believe  all 
the  things  we  read  to  his  discredit.  It  is  to 
the  painters  that  he  owes  much  of  his  popu- 
larity. Clouet  has  painted  him  with  his  pale 
southern  face,  his  dark  hair,  the  great  nose, 
the  narrow,  self-conscious  eyes,  the  beautiful 
hands  which  play  with  the  hilt  of  that  sword 
which  he  could  wield  with  such  chivalry,  but 
with  which  he  knew  not  how  to  lead.  We 
hear  how  he  modelled  himself  upon  his 
favourite  heroes  of  romance,  how,  when  he 
was  in  prison,  he  sent  for  the  Epistles  of  St. 
Paul  and  the  history  of  Amadis  of  Gaul  to  read. 

The  story  of  his  boys  left  by  him  as  hostages 
to  linger  in  captivity  after  the  battle  of  Pavia 
is  almost  the  saddest  of  all  those  which  are 
told  concerning  him.     Poor  little  hostages  for 


1 88  JBlacftsttcft  papers 

a  treaty  which  Francis  never  fulfilled!  One 
of  them  died,  the  other  never  quite  recovered 
his  spirits.  So  says  Colonel  Haggard  in 
Sidelights  upon  the  History  of  France,  but  the 
historian  Clouet  brings  a  very  noble  personage 
before  our  eyes  in  Henri  H.,  with  Francis's 
own  dignity  of  carriage;  he  is  mounted  upon 
a  splendid  charger,  and  is  riding  in  state. 
Henri  II.  is  also  nobly  represented  by  his 
magnificent  additions  to  Fontainebleau  and 
to  the  Louvre. 

Clouet  paints  many  of  his  sitters  at  different 
ages,  as  children,  and  then  young  people. 
Men  did  not  live  to  be  very  old  in  those  days ; 
there  are  few  heads  of  aged  men.  There  is 
one  magnificent  drawing  of  the  great  Con- 
netable  Anne  de  Montmorency,  who  lived 
from  one  reign  to  another ;  also  one  of  another 
sitter,  poor  little  Jeanne  de  Navarre,  of  whom 
the  melancholy  story  is  told  how,  when  she 
was  about  nine  years  old,  she  was  repeatedly 
struck  and  beaten  to  force  her  into  a  marriage 
notwithstanding  her  passionate  protests. 
When  the  day  of  the  ceremony  came  she  was 
so  loaded  with  brocade  and  precious  stones 


Paris,  prisms,  an^  primittts  189 

and  heavy  chains  that  she  could  not  walk,  and, 
according  to  the  custom  of  the  time,  the  poor 
little  bride  was  carried  into  the  church.  The 
Connetable  de  Montmorency,  that  grand 
seigneur,  was  selected  for  this  office,  which  so 
angered  and  disgusted  him  that  he  left  the 
Court  in  high  dudgeon,  and  gave  up  for  a 
time  all  his  dignities  and  appointments. 

There  is  one  exquisite  little  head  of  Queen 
Mary  Stuart  at  a  very  early  age,  delicate  and 
sprightly — ^la  Reine  Dauphine,  as  she  was 
called — and  there  is  a  charming  portrait  of  the 
beautiful  Duchesse  d'Etampes,  looking  inno- 
cent and  girlish,  whose  quarrel  with  Diane  de 
Poictiers  divided  the  Court. 

These  Primitifs  have  been  tolerant  of  hu- 
man limitations.  There  are  few  dull  blots; 
almost  everything  is  beautiful  enough  to 
belong  to  the  present  and  the  future  indeed, 
too,  as  well  as  to  the  past,  and  as  one  looks, 
one  realises  that  all  this  has  been  in  the  world 
for  five  hundred  years  to  give  joy  to  the  liv- 
ing mirage  sweeping  past  that  one  depicted 
on  the  canvas. 

But  the  clock  strikes  twelve,  the  shadows 


iQo  JSlacft0ticft  papers 

grow  short;  P.  M.  and  A.  M.  sadly  leave  this 
charming  world,  and  turn  their  faces  towards 
their  own  English  home,  where,  under  differ- 
ent skies,  and  perhaps  in  a  more  sober  mood, 
there  are  also  no  less  beautiful  things  to  ad- 
mire and  noble  collections  of  pictures  to 
study. 


No.  X 

"JACOB  OMNIUM" 

I 

"A  gent  both  good  and  trew  " 

On  one  of  the  landings  of  the  staircase  of  the 
National  Gallery,  at  the  entrance  of  the  rooms 
devoted  to  British  Art,  hangs  a  picture  by 
Gainsborough  representing  a  family  group. 
It  is  painted  with  all  the  full  and  harmonious 
sense  of  colour  for  which  that  painter  is  re- 
markable, and,  besides  its  artistic  merits,  it 
reproduces  that  individual  personality  which 
Gainsborough  seized  so  wonderfully  at  times, 
and  which  the  greatest  painters  can  convey 
to  us,  in  some  unexplained  and  yet  undeniable 
manner. 

The  family  is  that  of  Mr.  James  Baillie,  who 
191 


192  35lacJ?6ticft  papers 

was  a  younger  son  of  the  Baillies  of  Dochfour, 
and  the  picture  must  have  been  painted  in  the 
last  years  of  the  eighteenth  century.  It  is,  in 
truth,  a  charming  composition ;  and  an  original 
one  too,  even  though  the  usual  garden  back- 
ground is  there,  and  the  well-known  certain 
hangs  from  the  marble  column.  The  father, 
in  the  dress  of  the  period,  with  wig  and  with 
knee-breeches,  stands  stately  and  well-pro- 
portioned upon  a  step;  at  his  right  sits  the 
mother  of  the  family,  with  her  yoimgest  child 
on  her  knee  and  the  others  clustering  round 
her.  Mrs.  Baillie  is  not  handsome,  but  looks, 
nevertheless,  imposing  and  attractive.  She 
sits  in  some  dignity,  dressed  in  her  handsome 
fringed  robes,  with  a  satin  shoe  appearing 
from  beneath  the  ample  skirts. 

Beside  her  are  her  daughters;  the  eldest  a 
maiden  of  about  thirteen,  with  dark  eyes  like 
the  father,  and  wearing  a  tall,  feathered  hat, 
beneath  which  her  hair  falls  loosely.  In  after 
years  she  was  to  be  the  mother  of  the  great 
**  Jacob  Omnium.  '*  Next  to  her  is  a  younger 
sister,  with  a  merry,  round  face,  which  has  de- 
scended to  another  generation;  and  there  is 


''Jacob  ©mnium**  193 

also  the  usual  fascinating  little  boy  of  those 
days,  who,  in  his  blue  vest  and  buttons  and 
little  trousers,  is  looking  up  at  the  baby  in  the 
mother's  lap.  The  stately  gentleman  was  the 
grandfather  of  Matthew  James  Higgins,  other- 
wise *' Jacob  Omnium,"  and  the  likeness 
between  the  generations  is  certainly  very  re- 
markable. But,  good-looking  as  Mr.  Baillie 
must  have  been,  Gainsborough,  had  he  lived 
to  paint  it,  might  have  made  a  still  hand- 
somer picture  of  the  grandson. 

It  was  the  little  boy,  known  later  as  Mr. 
Alexander  Baillie,  who  left  this  picture  for  life 
to  his  nephew,  Mr.  Higgins,  and  then  to  the 
National  Gallery,  where  it  now  hangs  in 
honour. 

History  has  a  way  of  telling  her  stories  back- 
wards. It  is  interesting  to  recognise  dignity, 
wit,  kindliness,  a  certain  friendly  authority 
that  one  remembers  in  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, recorded  in  the  distant  eighteenth 
century  by  its  master-hand. ^  Here  too  is 
a  presentment  of  the  Higgins  family  itself 

»  How  many  such  records,  given  to  it  by  the  generous 
hand  of  Watts,  the  twentieth  century  will  look  upon  ! 

13 


194  3Blacftsttcft  papers 

not  as  yet  in  existence — the  two  daugh- 
ters, the  son,  the  kind  parents,  in  suitable 
surroundings. 

The  best  likeness,  perhaps,  that  was  done  of 
"Jacob  Omnium*'  is  one  from  a  photograph, 
which  records  his  well-modelled  features, 
calmly  humorous,  and  restrained.  The  other 
portrait  engraved  in  the  Memoir  is  an  excellent 
full-length  sketch  by  Sir  Francis  Grant,  with  a 
little  toy-terrier  introduced  by  Sir  Edwin 
Landseer.  This  portrait  gives  a  good  im- 
pression of  Mr.  Higgins's  great  and  remark- 
able height.  I  can  remember  seeing  my  father 
looking  up  at  him  as  the  two  walked  away  to- 
gether along  Young  Street.  Carlyle  called  my 
father  a  Cornish  giant  once,  and  Mr.  Higgins 
he  dubbed  Eupeptic  giant.  Not  being  eupep- 
tic himself,  grim  Thomas  seemed  to  disapprove 
of  tall  men  and  of  many  other  obvious  and  in- 
evitable facts.  Mr.  Higgins's  was  a  harmo- 
nious and  finely  modelled  figure;  I  could  not 
have  believed  from  my  remembrance  that  he 
was  six  foot  eight  inches  in  height,  if  I  had  not 
read  it  in  his  Memoir — that  "excellent  Me- 
moir,'' as  Sir  Leslie  Stephen  calls  it,  written 


**  Jacob  ©mnium'*  19s 

with  so  much  affection  by  a  good  friend,  Sir 
William  Stirling-Maxwell. 

Some  people  have  an  ear  for  music,  an  eye 
for  colour;  others,  in  the  same  way,  have 
an  interest  in  their  fellow-creatures,  a  critical 
opinion  concerning  them,  and  **  Jacob  Om- 
nium" was  one  of  these;  and  so  was  Sir 
William,  who  wrote  of  him. 


II 

One  has  heard  the  story  of  the  infant  in  a 
cradle  who  witnessed  a  theft  committed  by  his 
nurse,  and  who  resolved  to  tell  of  it  as  soon 
as  he  was  old  enough  to  speak  intelligibly.  In 
this  way  *' Paterfamilias"  seems  at  a  very 
early  age  to  have  had  an  opinion  upon  the 
affairs  of  life,  and  he  certainly  did  not  hesitate 
to  expose  the  wrongs  he  had  observed  when 
the  time  was  ripe  to  do  so.  A  boy  who  began 
at  fourteen  years  of  age  to  have  his  own  ideas 
upon  education  was  surely  bom  to  be  a  critic. 
He  says:  "I  used  often  to  doubt,  when  called 
off  from  my  studies  at  Harchester  to  mend  my 
master's  fire,  to  prepare  his  meals,  or  to  brush 


196  J5Iacft5tlcft  papers 

his  clothes,  whether  a  system  which  per- 
mitted and  upheld  such  practices  could  really 
be  beneficial  either  to  him  or  to  me. "  These 
early  conclusions  he  epitomised  in  later  times, 
when  the  well-known  letters  by  *' Pater- 
familias" about  Eton  came  out  in  the  Cornhill 
Magazine.  They  were  written  vividly,  and 
from  personal  experience  of  the  noble  old 
stronghold  of  tradition  and  prejudice  and 
good  faith.  More  than  one  master  took  up 
the  challenge.  "Paterfamilias"  replied  to 
the  replies.  His  third  letter,  published  in  the 
Cornhill  Magazine  for  March,  1861,  is  headed 
by  a  quotation  from  Paul  Louis  Courier  which 
is  too  amusing  not  to  be  quoted  at  length: 

"  Je  voudrais  bien  repondre  k  ce  professeur 
[says  the  eminent  Frenchman],  car,  comme 
vous  savez,  j'aime  assez  causer.  Je  me  fais 
tout  k  tous,  et  ne  dedaigne  personne;  mais  je 
le  crois  f^che.  II  m'appelle  jacobin,  r6volu- 
tionnaire,  plagiaire,  voleur,  empoisonneur, 
faussaire,  pestif^re  ou  pestiaire,  enrag^,  im- 
posteur,  calomniateur,  libelliste,  homme  hor- 
rible, ordurier,  grimacier,  chiffonnier.  C'est 
tout,  si  j*ai  memoire.  Je  vois  ce  qu'il  veut  dire ; 


**  Jacob  ©mntum  **  197 

il  entend  que  lui  et  moi  sont  d'avis  different; 
et  c'est  Ik  sa  mani^re  de  s^exprimer. '* 

When  the  Eton  master,  justly  claiming  re- 
muneration for  much  arduous  work,  describes 
the  occupation  "  as  one  repulsive  and  irksome 
to  most  men,*'  and  complains  that  "it  mars 
their  chances  of  marrying,'*  ** Paterfamilias, " 
with  grave  amusement,  observes  that  this 
gentleman's  complaint  is  certainly  not  flatter- 
ing for  the  wives  of  his  colleagues. 

** Paterfamilias"  writes  as  he  talked  per- 
haps, as  a  man  of  six  foot  eight  inches  would 
naturally  do,  with  a  certain  authority,  which 
in  his  case  was  tempered  by  a  strong  sense  of 
htimour;  and  yet  his  trenchant  decisions  were 
almost  always  for  the  good  of  the  world — to 
help  the  oppressed,  to  set  wrong  right.  Other 
men's  heads  did  not  obscure  his  view,  though 
he  may  have  too  hastily  overlooked  them. 

The  Memoir  gives  the  dates  and  facts  of  Mr. 
Higgins's  early  life.  He  was  bom  at  Benown 
Castle,  in  the  county  of  Meath.  He  was  edu- 
cated at  Bath  and  at  Eton,  and  afterwards  he 
went  to  New  College,  Oxford.  His  mother, 
the  little  girl  in  the  tall  hat,  was  early  left  a 


198  Blacftsttcft  ipapers 

widow  with  several  daughters  and  this  one 
son.  The  daughters  married  in  Italy  and 
settled  at  Naples.  I  can  remember,  as  a  girl, 
calling  with  my  father  upon  one  of  them,  a 
very  tall  lady,  with  all  the  Bay  of  Naples 
shining  through  the  windows  of  her  reception- 
room;  and  I  am  told  there  are  still  tall  and 
handsome  Italian  gentlemen,  her  sons  and 
nephews,  with  the  features  and  the  stature  of 
my  father's  old  friend  and  companion. 

Mr.  Higgins  as  a  young  man  after  leaving 
college  went  off  to  the  West  Indies.  He  was 
heir  to  an  estate,  which  he  twice  visited  at 
intervals,  finding,  as  we  read,  "that  his 
plausible  attorney  and  gentlemanly  manager 
were  actively  making  away  with  his  sub- 
stance.'* But  they  seem  literally  to  have 
reckoned  without  their  host,  who,  on  his 
arrival,  speedily  got  rid  of  them  and  brought 
his  tangled  affairs  into  order. 


Ill 


Soon  after  Mr.  Higgins 's  return  from  De- 
merara,  in  1847,  ^^^  famine  in  Ireland  was  at 


'*  Jacob  ©mntum ''  199 

its  height.  He  offered  his  services  to  the 
relief  committee  in  England.  Others  worked 
hard  through  that  cruel  time;  Sir  Aubrey  de 
Vere,  Mr.  John  Ball,  and  many  more  names 
will  be  remembered.  Mr.  Higgins  was  with 
those  who  were  sent  out  to  the  coast  of  Mayo 
with  supplies  for  the  starving  people.  They 
were  conveyed  thither  by  H.M.S.  Terrible. 
They  landed  at  Erris,  a  promontory  stretching 
into  the  Atlantic : 

"  The  shores  were  washed  by  water  abound- 
ing in  fish,  but  there  was  not  a  wherry  or  fish- 
ing smack  in  the  entire  barony.  Six  thousand 
were  supposed  to  have  perished  by  starvation, 
the  land-owners  all  but  two  were  bankrupt  in 
purse  or  in  character  .  .  .  men,  women,  and 
children  were  dying  daily  in  the  village  streets 
and  on  the  roadsides.  Mr.  Higgins  and  his 
associate,  Mr.  Bynoe,  a  naval  surgeon,  were 
besieged  at  once  for  food,  clothing,  and  coffins. 
.  .  .  When  at  last  the  local  committee  had 
got  into  perfect  order,  the  greatest  vigilance 
was  reqtiired  to  prevent  the  resources  provided 
from  being  wasted,  intercepted,  applied  to  the 
payment  of  wages,  etc." 


200  BlacftsticF?  papers 

The  letters  of  Mr.  Higgins  corroborate  the 
complaints  of  the  relief  commissioners.  In 
April,  1847,  ''Jacob  Omnium"  sent  a  letter  to 
the  Times  so  eloquent,  so  incisive,  that  even 
now,  after  sixty  years,  it  still  stings  and  stirs 
the  reader.  To  understand  the  Irish,  Sir  M.  E. 
Grant-DuflE  tells  us  on  good  authority,  a  man 
must  be  bom  again,  and  of  an  Irish  mother. 
The  present  writer  may  claim  this  latter  right 
to  realise  the  strange  mixture  of  fire  and 
apathy,  of  imagination  and  hopeless  fatalism, 
which  belongs  to  the  Irish  character,  and 
which  at  that  trying  time  roused  the  just 
indignation  of  ** Jacob  Omnium."  Fatalism 
was  no  part  of  his  creed.  To  bestir  himself, 
to  administer,  to  hold  the  reins  firmly,  came 
naturally  to  him.  He  might  have  been  an 
Irishman  for  spirit  and  kindness  and  enter- 
prise; he  certainly  was  a  typical  Scotchman 
for  painstaking  and  conscientiousness.  What 
the  work  was  which  he  had  to  carry  out  may 
be  imagined  from  the  following  statement  at 
the  end  of  his  letter: 

"...  Lest  I  may  be  suspected  of  exaggera- 
tion I  will,  in  conclusion,  set  down  what  my 


**  Jacob  ©mntum  "  201 

eyes  have  seen  during  the  last  half-hour.  I 
have  seen  in  the  court-house  an  inquest  held 
on  the  body  of  a  boy  aged  thirteen,  who,  being 
left  alone  in  a  cabin  with  a  little  rice  and  fish  in 
his  charge,  was  murdered  by  his  cousin,  a  boy 
of  twelve,  for  the  sake  of  that  wretched  pit- 
tance of  food.  A  verdict  of  wilful  murder  has 
since  been  returned.  The  culprit  is  the  most 
famished  and  sickly  little  creature  I  ever  saw, 
and  his  relatives,  whom  I  heard  examined, 
were  all  equally  emaciated  and  fever-stricken.** 

Sir  William  Stirling-Maxwell,  in  concluding 
this  melancholy  chapter,  writes  as  follows: 

"  The  Irishmen  of  1847  ^^^^  very  angry  with 
Lord  John  Russell  for  exhorting  them  to  adopt 
the  maxim,  'Help  yourselves,  and  Heaven 
will  help  you* ;  but  the  lessons  of  the  famine 
have  not  been  wholly  lost,  even  upon  this 
generation.** 

On  his  return  to  England  during  the  general 
election  of  1847,  Mr.  Higgins  stood  for  West- 
bury  as  a  Peelite.  He  was  defeated  by  Mr. 
James  Wilson,  afterwards  Finance  Minister 
in  India,  with  a  majority  of  twenty-one.  A 
daughter  of  the  Rt.  Hon.  James  Wilson  tells 


202  JSlacftsttcft  papers 

me  that  she  can  remember  being  taken  to 
a  window  to  see  the  election,  and  she  still 
remembers  her  father  speaking,  and  Mr.  Hig- 
gins's  remarkable  figure  standing'  on  the  hust- 
ings, and  the  excited  coachmen  of  the  opposite 
factions  driving  into  one  another,  so  that  the 
little  frightened  girl  burst  into  tears  and  was 
carried  away  by  her  nurse.  Mr.  Higgins 
never  again  stood  for  a  seat  in  Parliament, 
though,  as  we  read,  "his  interest  in  public 
affairs  continued  unabated,  and  there  were 
few  figures  more  familiar  than  his  in  the 
lobby  or  under  the  gallery  of  the  House  of 
Commons. " 


IV 


In  1850,  Mr.  Higgins  married  Mrs.  Benet,  a 
daughter  of  Sir  Henry  Tichbome. 

It  must  have  been  in  the  spring  of  1850  that 
my  father,  sitting  down  to  write  a  letter  at  the 
club,  found  the  impression  in  Mr.  Higgins 's 
writing  of  an  envelope  addressed  to  this  lady. 
Amused  and  interested  by  the  confirmation  of 
rumours  which  had  reached  him,  he  cut  out 


''5acob  ©mnium*'  203 

the  page  and  sent  it  to  his  friend.  Early  one 
summer  afternoon  my  sister  and  I  went  with 
him  to  call  at  Mr.  Higgins's  house  in  Lowndes 
Square  just  before  the  marriage.  There  were 
several  people  in  the  room,  but  I  most  of  all 
remember  the  soft  laughing  eyes  and  the 
white  bonnet  of  the  bride  to  be. 

As  I  have  said,  my  father  and  "Jacob 
Omnium*'  were  friends  and  companions  both 
before  and  after  this  marriage.  They  liked 
the  same  amusements,  they  had  the  same 
interests.  Is  it  not  well  known  how  they 
went  together  to  visit  a  celebrated  giant,  and 
were  admitted  free  of  charge  as  belonging  to 
the  fraternity?  They  fancied  the  same  toys, 
old  china,  bric-a-brac,  among  the  rest,  and  one 
spring  morning  a  cab  drove  up  to  our  door 
in  Onslow  Square  loaded  with  a  delightful 
gift  from  "Jacob  Omnium's"  store  to  ours. 
Dresden  and  Oriental  pieces  there  were,  a 
cauliflower  in  china  worth  its  weight  in  gold. 
One  mug  remains  to  this  day  intact  upon  my 
table — a  cup  in  which  some  of  us  may  still 
drink  to  the  past. 

Sir  William  Stirling-Maxwell,  writing  of  Mr. 


204  3BlacF;6ticFi  papers 

Higgins,  recalls  the  well-assorted  little  dinners 
both  of  his  bachelor  days  and  in  later  life ;  the 
breakfasts  to  the  Philo-biblion  Society,  and 
those  rarer  Derby-day  occasions  at  which  half- 
a-dozen  friends,  "  agreeing,  perhaps,  in  nothing 
but  good-fellowship,  used  to  meet  for  the  great 
summer  holiday.'*  He  quotes  the  names  of 
Sir  John  Simeon,  of  my  father,  of  Sir  Edwin 
Landseer,  John  Leech,  Count  de  Montalem- 
bert.  I  remember  a  brake  calling  one  fine 
Derby  morning  at  my  father's  door,  into  which 
he  mounted  and  cheerfully  drove  away,  leaving 
us  looking  out  from  our  schoolroom  window 
with  a  general  sense  of  excitement  and  holiday 
in  the  air,  since  even  the  grown-up  people 
were  out  enjoying  themselves. 

I  come  upon  one  and  another  record  of  Mr. 
Higgins 's  name  in  old  papers  and  letters  of 
that  time.  "When  I  took  leave  of  you  last 
night  on  Higgins 's  doorstep,"  writes  Richard 
Doyle  in  a  farewell  letter  to  my  father,  who 
had  just  started  for  America.  This  must 
have  been  a  last  parting  dinner  to  the  traveller 
in  the  autumn  of  1854.  "Mr.  Higgins  met 
me  in  the  park  with  baby, "  Mrs.  Brookfield 


m 


"JACOB   omnium"    and    MARSHAL   PELISSIKR 
Front  a  Drawing  by  Richard  Doyle 


**  Jacob  (Omnium**  205 

writes,  "and  asked  me  if  I  would  not  come 
and  dine  with  them;  but  I  could  not  leave 
home.''  How  these  chance  words  bring  the 
reality  of  past  days  before  one! 

Only  yesterday,  opening  a  book  at  hazard,  I 
read  an  amusing  note  of  a  conversation  that 
once  was  held  recorded  by  Sir  M.  E.  Grant- 
Duff.  "  Imagine, ' '  said  Sir  George  Trevelyan, 
speaking  of  ancient  Athens,  "a  society  in 
which  it  was  quite  the  natural  thing  to  dis- 
cuss at  great  length  whether  'Jacob  Omnium' 
was  taller  than  another  man  by  bigness  or  by 
two  feet!" 

This  allusion  must  have  been  at  a  time  when 
"Jacob  Ominum's"  name  had  long  become 
familiar  to  the  world  at  large.  "His  early 
letters  were  never  passed  over,"  says  his 
biographer.  They  seem  to  have  been  quoted 
with  respect,  and  irritation,  too;  they  never 
failed  to  make  their  mark. 

One  only  book  of  Social  Essays  contains 
most  of  his  longer  articles.  A  terrible  story, 
called  Captain  Jack,  refers  to  his  West  In- 
dian experiences.  The  history  of  "Jacob 
Omnium"  first  appeared  in  the  New  Monthly 


2o6  3Blacft5ttcK  papers 

Magazine  in  1845.  '^^^  paper  attracted  so 
much  attention  that  the  name  ever  after  re- 
mained to  its  author.  My  father  was  writ- 
ing in  the  same  magazine  at  the  time,  and 
he  and  Mr.  Higgins  both  simultaneously  ap- 
plied to  the  editor  to  make  them  known  to 
one  another. 

Again  and  again,  as  one  reads  what  "  Jacob 
Omniimi"  has  written,  one  is  reminded  of  the 
author  of  The  Great  Hoggarty  Diamond,  of 
the  Snob  Papers,  of  the  earlier  chapters  of 
my  father's  writing ;  on  one  occasion  Mr.  Hig- 
gins must  have  actually  written  two  pages  of 
the  Book  of  Snobs,  At  another  he  him- 
self supplied  the  story  for  a  very  well-known 
poem. 


Most  people  know  the  Ballads  of  Pleace- 
man  X,  and  the  song  of  "Jacob  Homnium's 
Hoss": 

One  sees  in  Viteall  Yard, 

Vere  pleacemen  do  resort, 
A  wenerable  hinstitute — 


''5acob  ©mnlum"  207 

T  is  called  the  Pallis  Court. 
A  gent  'as  got  his  i  on  it ; 

I  think  'twill  make  some  sport. 

A  horse  belonging  to  Mr.  Higgins  had  been 
stolen  from  Tattersall's  by  means  of  a  forged 
letter.  This  horse  was  cleverly  recognised 
by  his  groom  and  recovered  in  the  streets  of 
London.  The  thief,  who  had  been  keeping 
the  horse  at  livery,  found  it  convenient  to  dis- 
appear, and  the  stablekeeper  then  brought  an 
action  against  Mr.  Higgins  for  the  animal's 
keep,  which  Mr.  Higgins  naturally  refused  to 
pay.  The  cause  was  tried,  says  Sir  William, 
in  a  small  and  ancient  local  court  called  "The 
Palace  Court."  I  am  told  that  it  was  a 
relic  of  the  times  when  the  Sovereign  was 
supposed  to  hold  her  own  private  court  of 
justice,  and  has  been  now  finally  abolished. 
Pleaceman  X  tells  the  story: 

The  dreadful  day  of  trile 

In  the  Pallis  Court  did  come; 
The  lawyers  said  their  say, 

The  Judge  looked  wery  glum, 
And  then  the  British  Jury  cast 

Poor  Jacob  Hom-ni-um. 


2o8  3Blacft5tick  papers 

O,  a  weary  day  was  that 

For  Jacob  to  go  through; 
The  debt  was  two-seventeen 

(Which  he  no  mor  owed  than  you) , 
And  then  there  was  the  plaintives  costs, 

Eleven  pound  six  and  two. 

And  then  there  was  his  own, 
Which  the  lawyers  they  did  fix 

At  the  wery  moderit  figgar 
Of  ten  pound  one  and  six. 

Now  Evins  bless  the  Pallis  Court, 
And  all  its  bold  ver-dicks! 

Every  one  must  sympathise  with  the  feel- 
ings of  Pleaceman  X  for  ** Jacob  Omnium" 
when  he  exclaims, 

If  /  'd  committed  crimes. 

Good  Lord,  I  would  n't  'ave  that  man 
Attack  me  in  the  Times! 

The  differences  of  our  contemporaries  often 
amuse  and  interest  us,  but  their  cordial  imder- 
standings  and  sympathies  do  one  good  to 
dwell  upon.  I  do  not  allude  to  mutual  admira- 
tion societies,  which  are  apt  to  exhaust  one's 
attention,  but  to  that  pride  in  good  work  car- 
ried through,  that  love  for  generous  lives  lived 


**5acob  ©mnium'*  209 

simply  to  the  end,  which  will  always  ring 
true. 

*'  Busy  as  he  was  [I  am  again  quoting],  he 
was  ever  ready  to  prove  himself  a  friend  in 
need,  a  counsellor  in  difficulty,  a  comforter  in 
affliction.  His  long  practice  in  weighing 
evidence  enabled  him  often  to  mediate  in  dis- 
putes, and  though  in  his  literary  vocation  he 
was  a  man  of  many  controversies,  in  his  pri- 
vate capacity  he  was  the  author  of  not  a  few 
reconciliations." 

As  I  read  this  most  just  tribute  in  Sir  Wil- 
liam Stirling-Maxwell's  pages,  there  comes 
back  to  my  mind  a  message  from  Mr.  Higgins, 
written  years  and  years  ago,  just  after  my 
father's  death. 

The  note  is  almost  too  intimate  to  print, 

and  yet  it  gives  so  true  a  picture  of  the  writer 

and  does  such  honour  to  friendship  that  I 

cannot  but  allude  to  it  now.     Mr.  Higgins 

had  written  to  ask  us  who  was  advising  us 

and  had  sent  various  practical  and  admirable 

suggestions,  and  I,  in  return,  had  sent  him  a 

letter  we  had  just  received,  which  we  valued 

very  much. 
14 


2IO  JSlacftsttcft  ipapets 

He  says: 

"It  is  impossible  for  man  to  write  a  wiser 
or  kinder  letter  than  Mr.  Merivale  has  written 
to  you.  I  was  afraid  when  I  first  wrote  to 
you  that  in  your  grief  you  might  entrust  your 
affairs  to  kind  but  incompetent  hands,  and 
might  then  be  perplexed  how  to  extricate 
yourself  from  them.  As  it  is,  I  can  only  say 
that  whenever  I  may  die  I  should  be  very 
happy  to  think  that  my  children  had  at  their 
side  such  an  adviser  and  assistant  as  Mr. 
Merivale,  and  that  you  cannot  do  better  than 
rely  on  him  fully  at  all  points.  .  .  . 

"  Good-bye.  God  bless  you,  and  enable  you 
to  bear  up  bravely  against  the  heavy  blow 
which  has  been  so  suddenly  inflicted  on  you." 

If  I  may  refer  to  such  personal  matters,  I 
may  add  that  we  had  other  good  advisers  and 
helpers.  One  of  them,  Mr.  George  Smith, 
was  also  Mr.  Higgins's  friend,  who  himself 
belonged  to  that  race  of  men  with  an  instinct 
for  human  beings.  Mr.  George  Smith  trusted 
and  admired  his  stately  contributor,  and  liked 
to  take  counsel  with  him  about  both  literary 
and  public  affairs.     Specially  when  the  Pall 


'*  Jacob  Omnium  "  211 

Mall  Gazette  was  started  did  he  consult  him. 
Mr.  Higgins  wrote  many  of  the  "Occasional 
Notes''  which  the  new  periodical  was  the  first 
to  issue.  ** Occasional  Notes"  are  now  in 
every  newspaper,  but  they  are  not  quite 
*'  Jacob    Omnium's. ' ' 

VI 

When  "Jacob  Omnium"  ceased  to  write  for 
the  Times — it  was  a  disagreement  about  mili- 
tary matters  which  brought  the  long  con- 
nection to  an  end — ^his  serious  contributions 
continued  to  appear  in  the  Cornhill  Magazine, 
as  well  as  in  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette.  Army 
reform,  school  reform,  social  reform,  all  in- 
terested him,  and  it  is  curious  to  note  with 
what  just  instinct  he  seemed  to  seize  upon  the 
problems  of  the  hour  and  to  suggest  the  pos- 
sible remedies. 

What  a  variety  of  subjects  he  grasped !  We 
owe  to  him  the  introduction  of  steam-rollers  in 
the  London  streets,  brought  about  by  his  sym- 
pathy with  the  sufferings  of  the  horses  under 
his  window.  Administrative  reform  was  one 
of  his   hobbies.     The   Public   Schools   Com- 


212  JSlacftstlcft  papers 

mission  followed  upon  his  articles  in  the  Corn- 
hill  Magazine.  Only  yesterday,  sitting  in  a 
Surrey  garden,  with  an  horizon  of  autumn 
hills  and  a  foreground  of  flowering  lawns,  I 
heard  something  I  had  never  known  before 
from  a  friend  with  whom  I  have  many  mem- 
ories in  common. 

This  is  what  Mrs.  Murray  Smith  told  me: 
One  day  Mr.  Higgins  descended  the  steps  of 
his  club  and  found  the  road  wet  and  impass- 
able after  a  recent  shower.  His  intention  had 
been  to  cross  over  to  a  great  store  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  street,  and  to  buy  some 
soda  for  a  bath,  an  antidote  for  gout  which 
had  been  recommended  by  his  doctor.  Not 
caring  to  walk  through  the  mud,  he  called  to  a 
barefooted  boy,  and,  putting  a  shilling  into  his 
hand,  desired  him  to  cross  the  road  and  to 
make  the  purchase.  The  boy  returned  with 
the  soda  and  a  handful  of  change,  and  Mr. 
Higgins  asked  him  whether  he  had  imderstood 
that  he  was  intended  to  pay  for  the  goods. 
The  boy  declared  that  he  had  paid  all  that 
had  been  asked;  with  the  result  that  Mr. 
Higgins,  on  his  return  home,  sent  for  the 


'' Jacob  ©mnium '*  213 

household  books,  and  found  that  the  sum  usu- 
ally charged  for  soda  was  many  times  in  excess 
of  that  which  had  been  asked  from  the  little 
sweeper.  This  was  the  origin  of  the  first 
start  of  Co-operative  Stores,  so  vigorosuly  ad- 
vocated by  "Jacob  Omnium"  in  the  columns 
of  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette.  So  much  my  friend 
told  me,  and  she  smiled  as  she  added,  with  a 
remembrance  of  those  past  days,  the  trades 
resented  this  correspondence  and  withdrew 
their  advertisements  from  the  Pall  Mall 
Gazette  in  consequence.  The  public  certainly 
benefited,  but  the  newspaper  and  its  owner 
suffered. 

At  one  time  **  Jacob  Omnium**  was  strenu- 
ously opposed  to  that  great  ''Historicus'* 
whose  loss  a  nation  has  lately  mourned.  It 
would  be  almost  too  sad  to  dwell  on  all  these 
names,  on  those  vanished  hands  that  have  so 
long  toiled  for  others  and  have  made  straight 
the  devious  ways,  were  it  not  for  the  grasp  of 
the  living.  But  it  would  be  as  foolish  to  weep 
for  the  children  who  once  played  in  the  old 
garden,  and  who  are  now  busy  men  and 
women,   at  work  in  the  world,   as  only  to 


814  JBlacfiBttck  papers 

lament  instead  of  rejoicing  for  those  who 
have  passed  their  way  through  honoured 
life  to  rest. 

I  cannot  conclude  better  than  by  an  extract 
from  one  of  Mr.  Higgins's  essays,  a  description 
of  old  Chelsea  Hospital: 

''At  half -past  ten  on  Simday  morning  I 
applied  for  admittance  at  the  east  gate  of  the 
Hospital,  where  sat  a  guard  of  old  men  clad 
in  a  costimie  which  recalled  to  my  mind  Ho- 
garth's picture  of  the  March  to  Finchley. 
Being  readily  admitted  I  proceeded  to  the 
main  quadrangle,  where  I  found  the  pensioners 
mustering  for  church  parade.  Men  maimed 
by  every  variety  of  mutilation  under  which 
life  could  be  retained  were  slowly  gathering 
from  the  various  wards.  Empty  sleeves, 
wooden  legs,  bent  backs,  and  disfigured  fea- 
tures bore  witness  that  these  gallant  fellows 
had  dearly  bought  not  the  ease — for  that  few 
of  them  have  health  to  know — ^but  the  repose 
which  they  enjoy. 

"Amidst  all  these  signs  of  bodily  weakness 
and  infirmity  I  remarked  an  erectness  of  car- 
riage and  a  neatness  of  dress  which  proved 


'*  Jacob  Omnium"  215 

that  neither  age  nor  sickness  could  eradicate 
habits  acquired  by  long  service.  You  could 
read  in  every  man's  face  that  he  respected  him- 
self and  knew  his  own  worth,  and  was  proud 
that  his  country  had  recognised  it.  .  .  .  The 
sound  of  dnmis  and  fifes  broke  in  upon  my 
reverie. 

"The  old  men  formed  a  double  line  on 
either  side  of  the  gravel  walk,  and  the  governor 
of  the  Hospital,  preceded  by  a  blind  drummer 
and  two  octogenarian  fifers,  and  accompanied 
by  the  officers  of  the  establishment,  appeared 
on  the  parade.  .  .  .  The  pensioners  were 
closely  examined  by  their  governor,  as  he 
limped  along  their  most  accurate  line,  with  an 
air  rather  of  affectionate  interest  than  of 
official  scrutiny. 

"Before  they  broke  for  chapel  word  was 
passed  down  their  ranks  that  a  pair  of  green 
spectacles  had  been  picked  up  and  was  in 
the  hands  of  the  adjutant.  An  ophthalmic 
Egyptian  limped  forth  and  claimed  them,  thus 
characteristically  concluding  this  singular  mil- 
itary spectacle. " 

Then ' '  Jacob  Omnium ' '  describes  the  chapel : 


2i6  Blacftsttcft  ipapets 

''  *  Gloomy  but  handsome,'  the  altar  draped  on 
either  side  with  the  banners  of  Hyder  Ali  and 
Tippoo  Saib.  .  .  .  Sixteen  Imperial  eagles 
adorn  the  walls  and  attest  the  prowess  of  these 
soldiers,  of  whom  these  veterans  were  once  the 
flower.  The  body  of  the  church  is  entirely 
filled  by  the  pensioners ;  a  single  line  of  pews 
carried  along  the  walls  on  either  side  accom- 
modates the  officers  of  the  hospital  and  their 
families. 

"  It  happened  at  the  time  I  visited  the  place 
that  these  families  contained  several  young 
women  of  great  beauty ;  and  never  did  female 
youth  and  loveliness  stand  forth  more  con- 
spicuously than  when  contrasted  with  the 
Rembrandt-like  heads  and  shattered  frames 
of  these  venerable  soliders. " 

He  goes  on  to  praise  *'  the  manly,  straight- 
forward, and  kind-hearted  appeals  to  com- 
mon-sense of  Mr.  Gleig,  the  chaplain.  .  .  . 
What  shall  I  say  of  the  congregation?'*  he 
adds,  having  thus  eulogised  the  clergyman. 

**  In  most  assemblies  of  men  we  know,  to 
our  cost,  if  we  have  lived  long  enough,  that 
the  majority  are  but  of  average  merit,  that 


**  Jacob  ©mntum*'  217 

many  sink  below  mediocrity,  and  that  few  rise 
above  it. 

"  But  here,  amidst  this  strange  collection  of 
cripples,  all  have  been  actually  tried  in  the  fire 
and  not  found  wanting;  all  have  approved 
themselves  brave,  obedient,  faithful,  have 
undergone  severe  and  bloody  trials  in  every 
quarter  of  the  globe,  wherever  their  duty  led 
them,  and  have  been  fortimate  to  have  their 
merits  recognised  and  their  toils  rewarded  by 
the  otium  cum  dignitate  of  Chelsea.  Hack- 
neyed as  that  phrase  is,  I  know  of  none  other 
which  so  well  expresses  the  position  of  these 
meritorious  servants  of  England. " 

There  is  something  that  reminds  us  of  The 
Newcomes  in  this  restrained  and  yet  most 
effective  picture  of  the  peaceful  place,  which 
remains,  happily,  unchanged  from  the  days 
when  *' Jacob  Omnium's"  stately  figure  trod 
its  simny  old  courts. 


The  following  note  by  Mrs.  Yates  Thomp- 
son, the  eldest  daughter  of  Mr.  George  M. 
Smith,  tells  its  own  story  and  adds  to  mine. — 
A.  I.  R. 


2i8  J5lacft0ticFi  lPapet6 

The  amottnt  of  Mr.  M.  J.  Higgins^s  writing 
for  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette  is  shown  by  the  fact 
that  while  regular  contributors  such  as  W.  R. 
Greg,  Lord  Strangford,  and  Leslie  Stephen 
occupy  five  pages  each  in  the  contributors' 
ledger  for  the  first  two  years,  and  J.  Fitzjames 
Stephen  has  as  many  as  thirteen  pages,  M. 
J.  Higgins  requires  thirty  of  the  large  pages, 
all  written  in  my  father's  beautiful  clear  hand. 
His  first  article  appeared  a  week  after  the 
paper  started,  and  his  last  on  the  day  he  was 
taken  ill — six  days  before  he  died.  At  first 
there  were  not  so  many  **  Occasional  Notes  " — 
only  thirteen  in  May,  1865 — ^but  he  seemed 
soon  to  take  possession  of  that  department, 
and  in  May,  1866,  there  were  sixty-six  written 
by  him.  It  was  qtiite  an  ordinary  thing  for 
him  to  write  six,  or  eight,  or  ten  **  Occasional 
Notes  "  a  day,  and  the  curious  variety  of  sub- 
jects is  fairly  shown  by  the  following  entries 
for  two  days  in  1867: 

Public-houses.  Gutta  Percha  Ears. 

U.  S.  Presidents.  The  Ship  Diana. 

Photography  of     Agricultural     La- 
Corpses,  bourers. 


**  Jacob  ©mntum*'  219 

Telegraph   Correspon-     Hall    of    Arts    and 

dent.  Sciences. 

Lectures  by  a  Corporal.     Bishop  of  Salisbury. 
Condition  of  Naples.  Steam   Locomotive 

Mont  Cenis  Railway.  in  Rome. 

Fenian  Ringleaders.  Health    of    Prince 

Miracle  of  St.  Januarius.         Imperial. 

His  first  contribution  to  the  Pall  Mall 
Gazette  was  a  long  letter — ''Locked  in" — giving 
a  lively  account  of  his  service  as  a  juryman  and 
a  forcible  exposure  of  the  abuses  of  the  system. 
He  wrote  a  few  leaders  and  now  and  then  a 
review,  and,  besides  the  ''Occasional  Notes,*' 
*' Correspondence''  was  always  a  favourite 
method  of  his.  On  serious  questions,  such  as 
a  long  controversy  with  Sir  Samuel  Baker 
on  the  negro  question,  he  wrote  as  *'J.  O."; 
but  he  used  endless  pseudonyms,  often  writing 
a  letter,  on  the  Eton  holidays,  for  instance,  as 
"A  Mother  of  Six,"  and  answering  it  as  "A 
Father  of  Four."  To  name  but  a  few,  he 
appears  as  **A  Widow,"  "A  Veteran,"  ''Rose 
du  Barri,"  "Materfamilias,"  "Equestris," 
*'Belgravian."  Do  you  remember  yourself, 
as  "Martha  Query,"  stirring  him  up  to  an- 


220  Blacftstfcft  papers 

swer,  as  ^'Monitor,"  a  question  about  ''Gra- 
tuities to  Servants"?  At  one  time  he  carried 
on  a  correspondence  in  French  as  "Sanson" 
of  Leicester  Square. 

Perhaps  his  favourite  signature  was  "  Com- 
mon Sense."  No  abuses,  small  or  great, 
seemed  to  escape  him,  and  he  attacked  them 
with  a  mixture  of  earnestness,  playful  wit,  and 
good  sense  which  generally  seems  to  have  been 
successful.  Anything  connected  with  Eton, 
from  the  headmastership  down  to  "  Schoolboy 
Tippling";  anything  to  do  with  horses,  from 
steeplechases  to  the  macadam  in  the  London 
streets ;  any  case  of  legal  oppression  or  official 
incompetence  found  him  on  the  alert. 

The  power  he  exercised  is  well  shown  by 
his  correspondence  on  "Our  Grocers."  On 
January  13,  1868,  he  took  up  the  question  of 
the  overcharges  of  West  End  grocers,  and  in 
a  series  of  letters  from  "  Providus, "  "  A  House- 
keeper," "A  Victim,"  "A  Country  Grocer," 
besides  many  editorial  notes,  worked  the  sub- 
ject for  a  month,  and  on  February  12th  was 
able  to  publish  a  circular  from  many  of  the 
leading  West  End  grocers  reducing  their  prices 


**  Jacob  ©mnium"  221 

to  those  of  the  Co-operative  Stores .  He  did  not 
actually  start  the  Co-operative  Stores,  which, 
as  he  mentions,  had  been  begun  two  years 
previously,  but  by  this  correspondence  he 
gave  them  a  much  greater  vogue. 

I  have  read  a  great  many  of  Mr.  Higgins's 
contributions  to  try  to  choose  something  that 
might  be  worth  copying  for  you,  but  most  of 
the  subjects  are  dead  and  gone,  and  detached 
scraps  give  little  idea  of  the  scope  and  vivacity 
of  his  daily  work. 

E.  A.  M.  T. 


No.  XI 

MRS.  GASKELL 
I 

Two  old  friends,  we  will  call  them  "M. '* 
and  "N.,"  were  talking  of  Mrs.  Gaskell  one 
day  not  long  ago  as  they  drove  along  a  green 
Surrey  lane.  It  was  shaded  from  the  sul- 
try August  sunshine  by  spreading  oaks  and 
beeches,  and  led,  as  Surrey  lanes  do  lead, 
from  one  sweet  rural  distance  to  another, 
from  one  peaceful  common  to  another,  from 
dazzling  light  to  shade.  The  drive  had  been 
long  and  peaceful,  and  the  horses*  feet  fell 
tranquilly  and  rapidly  in  cadence,  tintil  out 
of  the  sunset  they  brought  the  two  ladies  into 
twilight.  Once  when  the  road  turned  the 
carriage  passed  by  an  open  pond  still  reflecting 
all  the  lovely  lights  and  dying  colours  over- 

222 


ffbvs.  Gasftell  223 

head.  "M.,"  who  had  taken  "N."  for  this 
charming  expedition,  began  remembering  how 
Mrs.  Gaskell,  too,  had  once  delighted  in  driv- 
ing on  and  on,  and  how,  and  with  what  pleas- 
ure to  them  all,  a  little  journey  had  been 
planned  long  ago — a  scheme  for  taking  her  by 
road  through  two  or  three  beautiful  counties 
that  she  wished  to  see.  There  were  to  be 
relays  of  horses  in  waiting,  and  the  drive  was 
to  last  for  several  days.  Mrs.  Gaskell  had 
delighted  in  the  prospect  and  in  talking  it  over. 
But  this  was  in  the  autumn  of  1865,  and  it  was 
but  a  happy  fancy  never  to  be  fulfilled.  *'  M.  '* 
spoke  of  this  and  of  many  meetings  more 
happily  realised,  and  still  to  be  dwelt  upon. 

**  N. "  said  she  had  met  Mrs.  Gaskell  once  or 
twice  only,  but  always  as  a  friend,  and  with 
natural  warm  admiration  for  the  writer  of  the 
books  she  had  loved  from  her  girlhood,  and 
still  loved  and  enjoyed  as  ever;  but  that  only 
one  or  two  very  clear  impressions  remained  to 
her  of  Mrs.  Gaskell  herself,  that  most  mem- 
orable and  interesting  woman. 

Then  "M."  answered  thoughtfully:  "Few 
people  have  ever  more  deserved  to  be  remem- 


224  Blacft5ticft  papers 

bered.  Many  have  written  of  her  and  spoken 
of  her,  but  they  have  scarcely  ever  expressed 
her  altogether  as  she  was.  They  have  scarcely 
rendered  the  remarkable  charm  of  her  presence, 
the  interest  of  all  she  said,  or  of  her  vivid 
memory,  of  her  delightftil  companionship.** 

"M. "  spoke  with  some  emotion  and  with 
that  beautiftil  fidelity  of  friendship  which  all 
who  know  her  will  ever  recognise ;  and  then  she 
went  on  to  describe  something  more  of  what 
Mrs.  Gaskell's  life  had  been,  apart  from  her 
literary  life — ^her  fellowship  for  those  among 
whom  she  lived,  her  good  sense  and  adminis- 
trative faculty,  her  bright  intuitions,  and  also 
the  extraordinary  ability  she  had  shown  in  all 
she  had  instigated.  More  than  once  during 
her  life  there  she  had  seen  Manchester  at  a 
cruel  pass.  Hard  times  had  been  succeeded 
by  "turbulence,  by  intimidation,  and  fall  in 
wages*';  then,  in  1862,  came  the  Lancashire 
cotton  famine,  and  all  that  Mrs.  Gaskell  and 
her  husband  achieved  with  the  help  of  their 
own  girls  is  still  remembered.  Hers  was  the 
spirit  which  flung  itself  into  surrounding 
lives,  adding  how  much  to  them!    There  was 


/»rs*  (BasftcU  225 

one  special  enterprise  among  others  for  sell- 
ing milk  in  the  poorer  quarters  of  Manchester, 
at  a  time  when  milk  was  scarcely  to  be  had 
at  all  for  the  poor.  '' This, ''  said  "  M.,''  *  Vas 
a  most  marked  and  successful  venture  among 
the  many  generous  intelligent  charities  un- 
affectedly carried  on  by  Mrs.  Gaskell  and 
those  belonging  to  her.'* 

One  remembrance  **M.''  and  **N.*'  found 
they  had  in  common.  "N.''  has  already 
written  of  a  certain  gusty  morning  long  ago, 
when  a  party  of  ladies  sat  indoors  listening 
not  to  the  wind,  but  to  Mrs.  Gaskell,  as  she 
told  them  ghost  stories.  "She  spoke  of 
Scotch  ghosts,  historical  ghosts,  spirited  ghosts 
with  faded  uniforms  and  nice  old  powdered 
queues.'*  "N.*'  is  quoting  from  her  own 
bygone  notes.  The  little  party  was  on  a 
visit  to  Oak  Hill  Lodge  at  Hampstead,  where 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  George  Smith  were  then  living, 
and  where  certain  grown-up  men  and  women 
of  to-day  were  playing  as  infants  on  the  lawn 
of  a  sloping  garden.  As  the  hours  went  on 
the  wind  abated,  and  presently  the  hosts  and 
their  friends  came  outside  to  sit  under  the 


226  35lacft6ttcft  ipapets 

trees  in  the  open  air,  and  the  one  central 
figure  still  talked  on  most  charmingly  to  the 
rest.  The  voice  seemed  almost  present  once 
again  as  *'M.*'  and  **N/'  recalled  it  all — a 
delicate  enunciation,  singularly  clear  and 
cultivated,  a  harmonious  note  moved  by  a 
laugh  now  and  then,  and  restrained  by  a 
certain  shyness,  that  shyness  which  belongs  to 
sensitive  people  who  feel  what  others  are  feel- 
ing almost  too  quickly,  and  are  at  times  sud- 
denly hindered  by  the  vibration.  On  that 
well-remembered  day  Mrs.  Gaskell  had  gone 
on  telling  the  stories  as  her  listeners  asked 
for  them.  There  were  legends  of  smugglers 
as  well  as  of  ghosts,  adventures  too,  stories 
with  weather  in  them,  wild  snowstorms  rising 
and  dying  away.  There  is  one  ghost  story 
in  Sylvia's  Lenders  which  is  told  by  Sylvia's 
father,  and  which  might  have  well  been  one 
of  those  that  were  recoimted  then.  It  is 
that  of  a  traveller  driving  in  the  dark  along 
a  lonely  place,  when  he  suddenly  becomes 
aware  of  the  presence  of  his  dead  brother  in  the 
dart  beside  him,  and  as  he  drives  on  wondering 
into  moonlight,  two  threatening  figures  sud- 


ZIDrs*  Gashell  227 

denly  rise  up  from  behind  the  hedge,  and  he 
hears  a  muttered  oath :  "  What,  two  of  them ! ' ' 
And  the  robbers  hesitate  and  fall  back,  and  he 
passes  on  in  safety,  and  then  he  realises  that 
his  protector  is  there  no  more. 

Leslie  Stephen  came  walking  down  the 
garden  with  Mr.  Thurstan  Holland,  Mrs.  Gas- 
kell's  own  son-in-law  to  be,  on  that  special 
day  as  we  all  sat  listening,  and  the  talk  be- 
came general,  and  reality  began  when  the 
story-telling  came  to  an  end.  This  must  have 
been  in  the  autumn  of  1864. 


II 


Once,  only  a  year  before,  Mrs.  Gaskell  had 
come  with  one  of  her  daughters  to  see  us  in 
my  father's  house,  and  I  can  just  remember 
her  talking  to  him  in  the  big  dining-room  at 
Palace  Green,  looking  up  laughing,  inquiring, 
responding,  gay,  yet  definite — ^such  is  the  im- 
pression I  have  of  her  presence.  Nor  do  I 
forget  the  motherly  letter,  full  of  truest  warmth 
and  expression  of  feeling,  in  which,  after  our 
father's  death,  she  invited  us  to  stay  at  Man- 


228  J6lacft5ticft  papers 

Chester,  to  come  to  that  home  in  Plymouth 
Grove  in  which,  for  years  and  years  to  be, 
such  true  hospitality,  such  life-long  friendship, 
awaited  me  and  mine. 

My  father  died  in  1863.  Within  two  years 
Mrs.  Gaskell  also  died,  at  about  the  same  age. 
He  "laid  the  weary  pen  aside,"  but  she  did 
not  seem  weary ;  she  was  at  work  and  at  play 
almost  to  the  last,  and  living  her  full  life,  with 
all  its  cares  and  joys,  its  achievements,  and 
anxieties,  and  labours  for  others.  She  had 
failed  a  little,  so  we  read — I  am  again  quoting 
from  the  interesting  biographical  introduction 
to  the  new  edition  of  her  books — and  then  the 
end  came  very  suddenly,  as  she  was  talking  to 
her  children. 

She  had  just  finished,  or  all  but  finished,  the 
last,  most  mature  and  lovable  of  all  her  books. 
To  people  of  an  elder  generation  rereading 
Wives  and  Daughters  now,  strong,  gentle,  and 
full  of  fun  and  wisdom,  all  youth  seems  to 
be  in  it;  it  is  rest  to  live  again  in  the  merry 
touching  pages. 

I  remember  hearing  one  of  Mrs.  Gaskell 's 
daughters  say  that  before  beginning  a  book  her 


a^vs.  Gasftell  229 

mother  never  failed  to  write  down  at  length 
the  sketch  of  the  story  that  was  to  be.  She 
took  care  to  have  it  all  safe,  and  to  mark 
ahead  the  incidents  and  the  characters,  and  she 
kept  to  her  plans.  This  presence  and  pre- 
science of  mind  was  a  gift  of  no  less  use  to 
her  in  her  imaginative  than  in  her  active  life. 
Other  authors,  less  capable,  indeed,  write  and 
rewrite  their  intentions,  and  then  find  it  im- 
possible to  keep  to  them;  they  go  here  and 
there  divagating,  breathlessly  pursuing  delud- 
ing will-o*-the-wisps.  But  as  one  thinks  over 
the  books  which  Mrs.  Gaskell  produced,  each 
so  different,  each  so  complete  in  turn,  one  is 
struck  by  her  harmonious  definiteness,  and 
by  the  precision  of  detail,  as  well  as  by  the 
breadth  of  her  horizons. 


Ill 


What  a  natural  song  is  that  of  the  people 
who  are  bom  with  a  gift  for  expression,  for 
"admiring  rightly.''  Of  the  people  who  have 
listened  to  the  many  chords  of  life,  who  have 
gratefully  enjoyed    and   delighted   in   them. 


230  J5lacft0ticft  papers 

almost  unconsciously  discriminating  in  their 
admiration,  discovering  new  secrets  of  happi- 
ness year  by  year. 

They  have  passed  on  their  way,  perhaps,  but 
they  have  not  died  with  all  their  music  in 
them;  their  signs,  their  thoughts,  their  voices 
are  here ;  they  are  teaching  still  and  repeating 
the  varied  aspects  of  this  world,  to  the  genera- 
tions in  turn,  as  when  King  David  looked  up 
at  the  heavens  and  showed  them  to  us,  where 
one  day  telleth  another  and  one  night  certifieth 
another,  where  there  is  neither  speech  nor 
language,  but  their  voices  are  heard  among 
them.  So  the  revelation  still  continues,  and 
goes  out  into  all  lands. 

And,  besides  that  gift  of  creation  which 
belongs  more  specially  to  the  race  of  poets, 
there  is  another  power  somewhat  different  in 
kind — that  of  vivid  realisation.  Some  writers 
create  their  characters  and  rule  over  this 
dream-world  of  theirs  as  Prospero  did  in  his 
island;  others  seem  to  be  rather  the  servants 
of  their  imaginations,  and  to  be  governed  by 
their  own  fantasies.  George  Eliot  was  Shake- 
spearean in  the  fact  that  she  never  seemed  to 


Obte.  aasftell  231 

become  subject  to  her  creations;  she  was  not 
afraid  of  being  diill,  she  watched  them  from 
afar.  She  was  not  Dorothea  any  more  than 
she  was  Milly  Barton,  or  Catarina.  Only 
once  in  Maggie  Tulliver  does  she  seem  to  be 
writing  of  herself.  Mrs.  Oliphant,  in  a  like 
way,  following  on  the  steps  of  her  beloved  Sir 
Walter,  never  seems  to  be  subject  to  her 
varied  crowding  characters,  to  the  thronging 
eager  companies  of  lads  and  lasses,  and  elders, 
and  commentators.  She,  too,  ruled  in  her 
kingdom. 

But  Mrs.  Gaskell  belongs  to  the  other  school; 
hers  is  a  different  inspiration  and  method. 
She  seems  for  a  time  almost  to  be  the  char- 
acter she  is  creating.  Take  Ruth,  take  Mr. 
Hale  or  Margaret,  take,  for  instance,  Sylvia's 
lover  Philip  Hepburn,  walking  home  on  New 
Year's  eve  along  Monkshaven  Common.  The 
author  not  only  knows  what  Philip,  despair- 
ing of  Sylvia's  love,  must  have  felt;  she  sees 
with  his  eyes,  thinks  with  his  thoughts. 

Take  that  description  of  the  merry-making 
at  Comeys',  and  of  Philip's  return  to  the  little 
town: 


232  JSlacftsttcft  papers 

*'  Shutting  the  door  behind  him,  he  went  out 
into  the  dreary  night  and  began  his  lonesome 
walk  back  to  Monkshaven.  The  cold  sleet 
almost  blinded  him  as  the  sea-wind  drove  it 
straight  in  his  face;  it  cut  against  him  as  it 
was  blown  with  drifting  force.  The  roar  of  the 
wintry  sea  came  borne  on  the  breeze;  there 
was  more  light  from  the  whitened  ground  than 
from  the  dark  laden  sky  above.  The  field- 
paths  would  have  been  a  matter  of  perplexity 
had  it  not  been  for  the  well-known  gaps  in  the 
dykeside,  which  showed  the  whitened  land 
beyond,  between  the  two  dark  stone  walls. 
Yet  he  went  clear  and  straight  along  his  way, 
having  imcons^ciously  left  all  guidance  to  the 
animal  instinct  which  co-exists  with  the  hu- 
man soul,  and  sometimes  takes  strange  charge 
of  the  human  body,  when  all  the  nobler  powers 
of  the  individual  are  absorbed  in  acute  suffer- 
ing. At  length  he  was  in  the  lane,  toiling  up 
the  hill,  from  which,  by  day,  Monkshaven 
might  be  seen.  Now  all  the  features  of  the 
landscape  before  him  were  lost  in  the  darkness 
of  night,  against  which  the  white  flakes  came 
closer  and  nearer,  thicker  and  faster.     On  a 


a^vs.  Gasftell  233 

sudden,  the  bells  of  Monkshaven  Church  rang 
out  a  welcome  to  the  new  year,  1796.  From 
the  direction  of  the  wind,  it  seemed  as  if  the 
sound  was  flung  with  strength  and  power 
right  into  Philip's  face.  He  walked  down 
the  hill  to  its  merry  sound — its  merry  sotmd, 
his  heavy  heart.  As  he  entered  the  long 
High  Street  of  Monkshaven  he  could  see  the 
watching  lights  put  out  in  parlour,  chamber, 
or  kitchen.  The  new  year  had  come,  and 
expectation  was  ended.     Reality  had  begun. 

*'He  turned  to  the  right,  into  the  court 
where  he  lodged  with  Alice  Rose.  There  was 
a  light  still  burning  there,  and  cheerful  voices 
were  heard.  He  opened  the  door;  Alice,  her 
daughter,  and  Coulson  stood  as  if  awaiting 
him.  Hester's  wet  cloak  hung  on  a  chair 
before  the  fire;  she  had  her  hood  on,  for  she 
and  Coulson  had  been  to  the  watch-night.'* 

The  story  of  Sylvia's  Lovers  is  one  of  the 
later  works,  and  should  properly  be  mentioned 
after  Cranford  and  after  North  and  South; 
but,  having  begun  to  quote  from  it,  I  will 
still  dwell  for  a  minute  upon  this  charm- 
ing sea-picee — ^this   Dutch  picture,   with  its 


234  Blacftsttcft  papers 

lights,  and  tones,  and  delicate  detail.  Whitby 
itself  is  written  down,  painted  in  the  bright 
atmosphere  and  varying  colour.  The  fresh 
air  blows,  the  boats  pass  and  repass  on  the 
heaving  tides,  the  fishermen  in  their  big  boots 
are  all  about,  and  the  crowds  and  the  Method- 
ists of  a  century  ago.  We  realise  the  busy 
turmoil,  the  abrupt  downright  thoroughness  of 
the  people,  the  stirring,  and  terrible,  and  most 
haunting  facts  of  the  early  part  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  All  is  told,  and  yet  told  with 
what  an  instinctive  gift  and  understanding 
of  what  to  say  and  what  to  omit !  The  grim 
public  events  are  brought  in  naturally,  and 
weave  into  this  remembrance  of  a  wayward, 
loving  girl,  and  the  life's  passion  of  her  gloomy 
lover.  Sylvia's  home,  her  father,  her  mother, 
Kester  the  farm-hand,  the  very  cows  and  their 
calves  all  live  for  us,  as  they  must  have  lived 
for  the  writer.  George  du  Maurier  used  to 
read  the  book  with  delight,  and  he  loved  the 
charming  name  of  Sylvia.  He  used  to  speak 
of  the  story,  I  remember,  with  a  sort  of  pride, 
as  if  it  belonged  to  him,  just  as  he  himself 
belonged    to    Monkshaven,    where    he,    too, 


Ifbvs.  Gasftell  235 

worked  and  played,  and  delighted  to  be  with 
his  wife,  and  with  his  family  round  about  him. 
One  day  as  we  walked  along  the  quays  he 
pointed  out  the  Fosters*  shop,  and  the  road 
along  which  Sylvia  must  have  come  trip- 
ping from  the  farm  to  buy  her  red  dufifle 
cloak. 

Mrs.  Gaskell  put  herself  into  her  stories; 
her  emotions,  her  amusements  all  poured  out 
from  a  full  heart,  and  she  retold  the  experi- 
ence of  her  own  loyal  work  among  the  poor, 
of  her  playtime  among  the  well-to-do.  And 
as  she  knew  more  and  more  she  told  better 
and  better  what  she  had  lived  through.  She 
told  the  story  of  those  she  had  known,  of 
those  she  had  loved — so,  at  least,  it  seems  to 
some  readers,  coming  after  long  years  and 
rereading  more  critically,  perhaps,  but  with 
new  admiration.  Another  fact  about  her  is 
that  she  faced  the  many  hard  problems  of  her 
life's  experience — faced  them  boldly,  and  set 
the  example  of  writing  to  the  point.  It 
has  been  followed  by  how  many  with  half 
her  knowledge  and  insight,  and  without  her 
generous  purpose,   taking  grim  subjects  for 


236  Blacftsttcft  papers 

art's  sake  rather  than  for  htimanity's  sake 
as  she  did. 

Mary  Barton  and  Ruth  are  problem  sto- 
ries, and  their  very  passion  and  protest  may 
have  partly  defeated  their  object;  and  yet 
what  influence  have  they  not  had  in  the 
enduring  convictions  of  the  age! 

Mary  Barton  was  the  first  book  Mrs. 
Gaskell  published,  and  it  made  her  name. 
She  was  writing  to  divert  her  own  sorrow  for 
the  loss  of  her  only  boy;  her  pages  were  alive 
with  emotion  and  with  the  truths  she  wanted 
to  urge.  As  the  wife  of  the  Unitarian  minis- 
ter in  Manchester,  she  had  been  long  living 
among  the  troubles  of  his  people,  and  she 
had  tried  to  share  them  with  him.  Now  out 
of  her  own  grief  she  was  telling  the  story  of 
the  sorrows  she  had  known,  and  telling  it 
with  what  force  and  pathos,  with  what  fresh 
vigour  and  generous  pleading!  My  own 
father,  and  Dickens  and  Carlyle  and  Kings- 
ley,  all  the  leading  critics  of  those  days  recog- 
nised her  great  gift  at  once  and  with  warm 
plaudits;  who  indeed  could  read  the  story  of 
Mary  Barton  without  admiration?     There  is 


a^ts.  Gasftell  237 

one  special  episode  in  the  book,  of  a  little  boat 
pursuing  the  great  ship  into  the  open  sea, 
which  completely  carries  the  imagination 
away.  Mary  Barton  is  a  tract  as  well  as  a 
most  moving  and  irresistible  story.  Ruth 
is  a  tract  combined  with  a  picture-book — ^too 
much  of  a  tract  perhaps  to  carry  absolute 
conviction. 

The  pictures  in  the  beginning  of  the  story 
of  Ruth  must  have  been  images  of  Mrs. 
Gaskell's  own  childhood,  so  brightly  touched 
are  they.  Mrs.  Gaskell  was  a  young  woman 
when  she  wrote.  The  landscapes  are  irradiate 
with  the  life  and  the  dazzling  colours  of  early 
prime — ^as  in  this  picture  from  an  old  farm- 
house: 

*'  In  those  days  the  house-place  had  been  a 
cheerful  room,  full  of  life,  with  the  passing  to 
and  fro  of  husband,  child,  and  servants;  with 
a  great  merry  wood-fire  crackling  and  blazing 
away  every  evening,  and  hardly  let  out  in  the 
very  heat  of  summer;  for  with  the  thick  stone 
walls,  and  the  deep  window-seats,  and  the 
drapery  of  vine-leaves  and  ivy,  that  room, 
with  its  flag-floor,  seemed  always  to  want  the 


23S  35lacft5ttcft  papers 

sparkle  and  cheery  warmth  of  a  fire.  But 
now  the  green  shadows  from  without  seemed 
to  have  become  black  in  the  uninhabited 
desolation.  The  oaken  shovel-board,  the 
heavy  dresser,  and  the  carved  cupboards  were 
now  dull  and  damp,  which  were  formerly 
polished  up  to  the  brightness  of  a  looking- 
glass  where  the  fire-blaze  was  for  ever  glinting; 
they  only  added  to  the  oppressive  gloom;  the 
flag-floor  was  wet  with  heavy  moisture.  Ruth 
stood  gazing  into  the  room,  seeing  nothing  of 
what  was  present.  She  saw  a  vision  of  for- 
mer days — ^an  evening  in  the  days  of  her 
childhood ;  her  father  sitting  in  the  *  master's 
comer '  near  the  fire,  sedately  smoking  his  pipe 
while  he  dreamily  watched  his  wife  and  child; 
her  mother  reading  to  her,  as  she  sat  on  a 
little  stool  at  her  feet.  It  was  gone — all 
gone  into  the  land  of  shadows;  but  for  the 
moment  it  seemed  so  present  in  the  old  room 
that  Ruth  believed  her  actual  Hfe  to  be  the 
dream. " 

Here  is  another  sketch  from  that  same 
country  place: 

"Again  they  stood  together  at  the  top  of  a 


steep  ascent,  *the  hill'  of  the  hundred.  At 
the  summit  there  was  a  level  space,  sixty  or 
seventy  yards  square,  of  unenclosed  and 
broken  ground,  over  which  the  golden  bloom 
of  the  gorse  cast  a  rich  hue,  while  its  delicious 
scent  perfumed  the  fresh  and  nimble  air.  On 
one  side  of  this  common  the  ground  sloped 
down  to  a  clear  bright  pond  in  which  were 
mirrored  the  rough  sand-cliffs  that  rose  abrupt 
on  the  opposite  bank;  hundreds  of  martins 
fojund  a  home  there,  and  were  now  wheeling 
over  the  transparent  water,  and  dipping  in 
their  wings  in  their  evening  sport.  Indeed, 
aU.  sorts  of  birds  seemed  to  haunt  the  lonely 
pool;  the  water-wagtails  were  scattered  around 
its  margin,  the  linnets  perched  on  the  top- 
most sprays  of  the  gorse-bushes,  and  other 
hidden  warblers  sang  their  vespers  on  the 
uneven  ground  beyond.  ..." 

All  this  landscape  is  lived  and  fondly  re- 
membered, not  noted  by  a  passing  traveller 
and  studied  from  a  literary  point  of  view. 
The  old  country  house,  which  I  once  saw, 
stands  within  a  mile  or  two  of  Cranford, 
known  to  how  many  of  us;  of  Hollingford,  the 


240  Blacft0ticft  papers 

little  straggling  town  where  Mr.  Gibson  came 
and  went,  tending  the  sick  and  travelling  on 
his  beneficent  rounds.  That  same  town  is 
also  known  as  Knutsford  by  others.  That  the 
three  places  are  one  and  the  same  none  need 
ever  doubt,  and  from  this  little  northern 
stronghold  of  kindly  wit  and  enterprise,  sons 
and  daughters  have  gone  forth  to  take  their 
place  in  the  world,  among  whom  many  a 
trusted,  well-known  name  belongs  to  Dr. 
Gibson's  race  and  kin. 

The  old  country  house  where  Lord  Clive  as 
a  boy,  at  the  risk  of  his  life,  used  to  leap  from 
one  stone  pier  to  another;  where  the  grand- 
children of  the  Holland  family,  and  Mrs. 
Gaskell  among  them,  have  played  before 
starting  out  into  the  world,  is  still  standing. 
One  of  the  Hollands,  a  son's  son,  so  loved  the 
old  country  where  his  grandfather  had  dwelt, 
that  when,  after  long  service  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  he  was  raised  to  the  House  of  Lords, 
he  chose  to  be  called  by  none  other  but  the 
familiar  name  of  Knutsford,  a  name  which  will 
be  also  ever  associated  with  the  goodness  and 
noble  beauty  of  her  who  shared  it  for  so  long. 


/IDt5«  Gasf^ell  241 

IV 

As  one  looks  over  the  list  of  Mrs.  Gaskell's 
books  in  the  order  in  which  they  come,  one 
cannot  but  see  how  they  gain  in  maturity  as 
they  advance. 

I  can  think  of  no  other  instance  of  one 

woman  of  mark  doing  so  much  honour  and 

justice  to  another,  as  Mrs.  Gaskell  did  when 

she  wrote  the  history  of  Charlotte  Bronte.     It 

is  true  that  memoirs,  even  dull  ones,  are  the 

most  fascinating  of  all  reading.     They  are 

certainly  cheering  literature  for  those  who 

chiefly  remember  and  who  can  put  a  certain 

life  into  the  dry  pages  which  concern  those 

they  have  known;  but  Mrs.  Gaskell's  life  of 

Charlotte  Bronte  is  a  book  not  for  those  who 

remember  only,  but  for  the  young  who  are 

learning  still;  for  generations  yet  to  be  bom. 

It  is  no  mere  list  of  events  with  dates  and 

adjectives,  but  an  actual  aspect  of  life  flashed 

and  re-created  there  before  us — ^we  see  the 

landscape,    we   breathe   the   atmosphere   of 

weird  dreams  and  of  grim  reality. 

If  Mrs.  Gaskell  trusted  too  much  to  the  vivid 
16 


242  JSlacftBticft  papers 

emphasis  of  a  genius  such  as  Charlotte 
Bronte's  when  she  took  some  of  her  impres- 
sions for  facts,  and  wrote  of  Branwell's 
hallucinations  as  though  they  had  ever  had  a 
real  existence,  who  will  not  feel  for  her  and 
for  the  troubles  that  ensued?  Charlotte 
Bronte  had  her  passionate  prejudices  brought 
about  by  the  very  exclusiveness  of  her  cir- 
cumstances and  character;  but  one  likes  to 
realise  what  happiness  she  must  have  found  in 
her  later  days  in  the  success  of  her  work,  in  the 
encouragement  of  her  publishers,  and  in  Mrs. 
Gaskell's  protecting  element  of  common-sense 
and  kindly  friendship. 

My  space  is  almost  at  an  end,  and  I  feel  as  if 
I  had  only  begun  my  say.  Where  is  the  just 
tribute  to  that  fine  novel  of  North  and  Southy 
that  book  so  well  conceived,  so  bravely  ex- 
pressed, attacking  great  problems  and  speak- 
ing openly  at  a  time  when  most  people  were 
still  afraid  to  speak?  Where  is  the  critic's 
admiration  for  many  of  those  shorter  stories  ? 
One  would  like  to  dwell  upon  each  in  turn,  and 
on  Cranford  and  its  beloved  and  amusing 
world,  to  be  found  again  described,  only  with 


/»rs»  Gasftell  243 

greater  depth  and  feeling,  in  Wives  and 
DaughterSy  where  we  find  the  busy  little 
town  progressing  still  and  making  the  most 
of  its  independent  spirit. 

Was  there  ever  such  a  type  of  the  wise 
country  doctor  as  Mr.  Gibson,  such  a  charmer 
as  Cynthia  ?  A  statue  might  be  erected  to  Mrs. 
Gibson  in  the  market-place  of  Hollingford, 
if  all  the  people  who  have  been  amused  by 
her  were  to  subscribe.  How  edifying  are 
her  views  when  conversing  with  Osborne 
Hamley,  and  Cynthia  is  thanking  him  for 
some  flowers!  **0h,''  says  Osborne,  **you 
must  not  thank  me  exclusively;  I  believe 
it  was  my  thought,  but  Roger  took  all  the 
trouble  of  it.  '*  **  I  consider  the  thought  was 
everything,"  said  Mrs.  Gibson;  ** thought  is 
spiritual,  while  action  is  merely  material." 
**This  fine  sentence  took  the  speaker  herself 
by  surprise."  We  also  know  her  pensive 
speculations  to  Molly  as  to  what  would  have 
happened  if  Molly's  dear  mother  had  lived 
and  Mr.  Kirkpatrick,  her  own  dear  first  hus- 
band, also,  and  if  they  had  married  each  other^ 
and  she  herself  had  been  Molly's  mamma. 


244  JSlacftBttcft  papers 

As  for  Molly  Gibson,  she  is  the  dearest  of 
heroines,  a  bom  lady,  unconsciously  noble  and 
generous  in  every  thought — it  makes  one  the 
happier  to  know  that  Mollys  exist,  even  in 
fiction,  and  one  is  grateful  to  those  who  can 
depict  such  characters  from  their  own  vivid 
perceptions  and  experience. 

Mrs.  Gaskell  wrote  not  only  to  make  people 
happier  but  also  to  teach  the  truth  as  she  felt 
it.  A  critic,  speaking  of  the  novels  of  '48, 
has  quoted  Job  Legh's  saying  out  of  Mary 
Barton  as  a  text:  **To  my  thinking  them  that 
is  strong  in  any  of  God's  gifts  is  meant  to 
help  the  weak!"  This  same  critic  continues: 
''As  the  sonnet  which  had  been  as  a  lute  for 
lovers  became  in  Milton's  hands  a  trumpet,  so 
(in  Mrs.  Gaskell's  time)  the  novel,  which  had 
once  been  (and  was  to  be  again)  a  toy,  be- 
came a  sword  with  which  to  fight  the  cause 
of  the  oppressed.  '* 

We  must  look  to  the  people  who  can  see  to 
be  our  guides — ^not  to  the  blind  leading  the 
blind,  not  to  the  fanciful,  to  the  impatient, 
to  the  purblind  pointing  to  arid  places,  to 
wastes  and  abysses,  to  impossible  short  cuts 


IfS^vB.  Gasftell  24S 

which  lead  to  sloughs  of  despond.  Mrs. 
Gaskell  could  see  the  sloughs  plainly  enough, 
but  she  seemed  instinctively  to  discover  the 
stepping-stones,  the  clues  out  of  the  labyrinth, 
the  merry,  friendly,  loving  solutions  which  life 
presents;  the  happy  possibilities  still  existing 
for  each  one  of  us  if  we  did  not  always  insist 
upon  being  our  own  tragedies. 

The  last  pages  of  Cousin  PhilUs  with  the 
autumnal  skies  and  the  fragrant  country  ho- 
rizons, contain  true  wisdom  and  philosophy. 
All  the  frenzies,  all  the  dissertations  and  dis- 
sections of  the  modem  school  can  express  no 
more: 

**  *Now,  Phillis,'  said  old  Betty,  coming  up 
to  the  sofa,  *we  ha'  done  a'  we  can  for  you,  and 
th'  doctors  has  done  a'  they  can  for  you,  and 
I  think  the  Lord  has  done  a'  He  can  for  you, 
and  more  than  you  deserve,  too,  if  you  don't 
do  something  for  yourself.'  ..." 

Since  writing  this,  I  have  come  upon  an 
old  friend's  criticism,  printed  at  the  end  of 
Wives  and  Daughters,  which  I  cannot  but 
quote  in  conclusion: 

"While  you  read  Mrs.  Gaskell's  last  three 


246  JSlacftBttCft  ipapcts 

books  [he  says],  you  feel  yourself  caught  out 
of  an  abominable  wicked  world  into  one  in 
which  there  is  much  weakness,  many  mis- 
takes, sufferings  long  and  bitter,  but  in  which 
it  is  possible  for  people  to  live  calm  and  whole- 
some lives;  and  what  is  more,  you  feel  this 
is  at  least  as  real  a  world  as  the  other.  The 
kindly  spirit  which  thinks  no  ill  looks  out  of 
her  pages  irradiate,  .  .  ." 


NO.  XII 
CONCERNING  TOURGUENIEFF 


Sometimes  opening  a  book  is  like  opening 
a  door  and  coming  into  the  presence  of  a 
friend. 

Friends  are  of  different  sorts.     There  are 

those  whom  we  remember  all  our  lives,  who 

have  loved  us  and  been  good  to  us ;  who  have 

delighted  us  by  their  kindly  fun  and  affection; 

they  are  bon  comme  le  pain,  as  French  people 

say,  and  bread  is  the  staff  of  life.     Then  there 

are  also  the  friends  of  imagination,  who  have 

given  us  help,  fun,  response,  sympathy,  if  not 

affection,  and  in  whom  the  inward  grace  is  not 

lacking  for  us.     Then  again  there  are  those 

whom  we  have  beheld  with  our  eyes,  who  have 

drawn  us  to  them  by  their  personality,  whom 

247 


248  3Blacft0ttcft  papers 

we  have  learnt  to  admire  rightly,  to  know 
by  degrees  and  in  secret  by  a  process  unex- 
plained; who  have  become  types  to  us  of 
what  we  most  regard  and  hope  to  find  in  life. 

A  book  lately  published  by  M.  Emile  Hau- 
mont  seems  to  have  brought  me  once  more 
into  the  presence  of  one  of  these  friends, 
impersonal  but  very  real,  and  recalled  a  great 
man  whom  I  saw  but  three  times  in  all. 

My  first  remembrance  of  Ivan  Tourgu^nieff 
is  of  a  tall  figure  standing  in  the  stimmer 
twilight  in  that  familiar  green  drawing-room 
in  Onslow  Square  where  so  many  things 
happened  which  were  beyond  me,  and  where  so 
many  things  were  said  which  I  did  not  follow. 
In  those  days  I  was  more  used  to  look  at  my 
father's  guests  than  to  speak  to  them  or  to 
understand  who  they  were. 

When  I  met  Tourgu^nieff  again,  it  was  long 
years  after.  I  had  read  the  translations  of  his 
wonderful  books  and  could  realise  him  far 
more  than  on  that  first  vague  occasion.  One 
of  our  associates,  a  delicate  little  lady,  with  a 
love  for  wise  and  interesting  people,  used  to 
tell  us  about  him  and  about  the  Viardots,  for 


Concerntng  Uoutguenfetf  249 

whom  she  had  a  great  enthusiasm,  and  when 
that  time  of  trouble  came  to  France  which 
brought  over  so  many  distinguished  refugees 
to  London,  these  among  them  in  particular 
were  honoured  guests  in  Mrs.  Huth's  drawing- 
rooms  in  Prince's  Gate.  The  setting  was 
suitable  for  such  travellers;  besides  their 
welcoming  hosts,  the  best  of  company,  past 
and  present,  was  there  to  receive  them.  Sir 
Thomas  More's  noble  grim  head,  by  Holbein, 
was  over  the  chimney-piece;  a  lovely  Gains- 
borough lady  smiled  from  the  wall,  so  did  the 
original  portrait  of  Madame  de  S6vign6,  wear- 
ing the  celebrated  pearl  necklace,  with  Ma- 
dame de  Grignan  beside  her — ^that  charming 
pair — ^in  all  their  grace  to  be  admired. 

An  inner  room,  again,  was  lined  with  Mr. 
Huth's  wondrous  collection  of  Elizabethan 
literature — ^his  Shakespeares  and  first  editions 
— all  in  court  dress,  gilt-backed  and  dignified, 
and  safe  enclosed  behind  crystal  doors.  On 
this  particular  evening,  which  I  remember 
so  well,  Madame  Viardot  was  at  the  piano  in 
a  black  dress,  accompanying  herself  as  she 
sang  with  that  fire  and  grace  which  seemed  so 


25©  3Blac?i5ticft  papers 

specially  to  belong  to  her.  It  was  some 
German  ballad,  and  it  seemed  to  be  so  little, 
so  much,  so  immense,  all  in  one.  She  sang — 
there  was  a  sudden  storm,  there  were  children 
running  down  a  village  street  in  the  music,  we 
were  all  children  as  we  listened — ^the  passing 
storm  was  in  the  room.  As  the  song  finished, 
a  thrill  of  admiration  came  in  a  rippling  mur- 
mur from  the  listeners.  It  was  one  of  those 
moments  which  coimt  in  life.  Pauline  Viar- 
dot*s  singing  stirred  up  unknown  perceptions 
and  feelings  in  us  all,  her  beautiful  eyes  were 
alight,  she  almost  whispered  the  last  words. 
Just  then  my  glance  fell  upon  Tourgu^nieff 
leaning  against  the  door-post  at  the  far  end 
of  the  room,  and  as  I  looked  I  was  struck, 
being  short-sighted,  by  a  certain  resemblance 
to  my  father,  which  I  tried  to  realise  to  my- 
self. He  was  very  tall,  his  hair  was  grey  and 
abundant,  his  attitude  was  quiet  and  repose- 
ful; I  looked  again  and  again  while  I  pictured 
to  myself  the  likeness.  When  Tourgu^nieff 
came  up  after  the  music,  he  spoke  to  us  with 
great  kindness,  spoke  of  our  father,  and  of 
having  dined  at  our  house,  and  he  promised 


Concetntng  Uourau^nfetf  251 

kindly  and  willingly  to  come  and  call  next  day 
upon  my  sister  and  me  in  Onslow  Gardens.  I 
can  remember  that  next  day  still;  dull  and 
dark,  with  a  yellow  mist  in  the  air.  All  the 
afternoon  I  sat  hoping  and  expecting  that 
Tourgu6nieff  might  come,  but  I  waited  in 
vain.  Two  days  later,  we  met  him  again  at 
Mrs.  Huth's,  where  we  were  all  once  more 
assembled.  Mr.  Tourgu6nieff  came  straight 
up  to  me  at  once.  **I  was  so  sorry  that  I 
could  not  come  and  see  you,"  he  said,  **so 
very  sorry,  but  I  was  prevented.  Look  at 
my  thtimbs!"  and  he  held  up  both  his  hands 
with  his  palms  outwards.  I  looked  at  his 
thimibs,  but  I  could  not  understand.  "See 
how  small  they  are,**  he  went  on;  ** people 
with  such  little  thumbs  can  never  do  what 
they  intend  to  do,  they  always  let  themselves 
be  prevented";  and  he  laughed  so  kindly 
that  I  felt  as  if  his  visit  had  been  paid  all  the 
time  and  quite  understood  the  validity  of  the 
excuse.  He  once  did  come  into  my  house,  but 
not  till  many  years  had  passed.  I  am  proud 
to  think  that  he  once  sat  down  at  my  writing- 
table  though  he  wrote  but  three  words  there. 


252  JSlacftsttcft  lPapet5 

This  was  in  Young  Street,  by  Kensington 
Square,  on  the  occasion  of  his  last  visit  to 
London.  I  had  written  to  him  at  the  sug- 
gestion of  my  sister-in-law,  Mrs.  Warre  Cor- 
nish, to  ask  him  if  he  would  join  a  Windsor 
water-party,  at  which  I  think  Tennyson  was 
expected.  No  answer  came  to  my  letter,  but 
one  day  when  I  returned  home,  my  little  coun- 
try-maid said  mysteriously  that  a  ''gentle- 
man had  called,  a  very  tall  gentleman  with 
grey  hair;  he  had  asked  for  me,  and  then  when 
he  heard  I  was  out,  he  said  he  should  like  to 
go  in  and  write  something,  and  he  sat  down  at 
your  table,  ma'am,  and  wrote.'*  Again  the 
familiar  description  stirred  me.  On  my  table 
his  card  was  lying,  with  a  few  words  in  his 
writing  to  say  he  was  leaving  England  next 
day. 


II 


He  had  been  at  Windsor  shortly  before, 
when  he  went  from  London  to  call  on  Mrs. 
Oliphant.  **  He  saw  only  one  person,  '*  writes 
Mrs.  Warre  Cornish,  "and  sat  with  her  in  a 


Goncetntng  Uourguentett  253 

peaceful  tete-h-tete  in  one  of  the  sunny  bow- 
windows  of  the  house  which  bears  her  name 
to  this  day.^  Mrs.  Oliphant  herself  described 
the  visit.  *  She  had  never  seen  so  contempla- 
tive a  being,  so  big  and  so  gentle  at  once.* 
She  spoke  of  the  great  presence,  of  the 
leonine  head  set  nobly  on  wide  shoulders. 
*  Oh,  a  very  great  and  gentle  being,  my  dear, 
full  of  silent  contemplation,  immense  and 
gentle,'  she  said.  I  seemed  to  see  them 
sitting  together.  Mrs.  Oliphant  herself,  with 
all  her  wonderful  activity  and  performance, 
was  a  gentle,  contemplative  being,  very 
shrewd  and  amusing  with  her  intimate  friends, 
but  inclined  to  be  shy  with  a  stranger,  and 
anyhow,  readily  quiet  with  any  one  who 
loved  repose.  I  could  picture  the  maternal 
Scotchwoman,  with  her  dogs,  as  usual,  curled 
up  at  her  feet,  and  all  the  homelike  setting  of 
her  sweet,  self -limited  existence,  and  opposite 

1  Oliphant  House,  in  its  green  crescent,  with  the  tall  trees 
and  rooks,  is  reached  by  an  old-world,  straggling,  narrow 
street,  which  runs  down  from  the  castle  to  the  winding  river. 
Its  very  name,  Peascod  Street,  is  suggestive  of  any  number 
of  old  taverns.  It  is  said  to  have  been  known  to  Shake- 
speare, and  certainly  existed  in  the  days  when  Mrs.  Ford 
daily  attended  prayers  in  the  parish  church. 


254  JSIacftsticft  ipapet0 

to  her  the  great  novelist,  the  sportsman  from 
wide  Russian  horizons,  and  with  those  wider 
ones  still  of  his  own  dreams. '' 

There  is  yet  another  interesting  accotint  of 
Tourgu6nieff ,  when  he  received  an  honorary 
degree  at  Oxford.  "He  was  entertained  on 
the  eve  of  the  ceremony  at  Pembroke  College ; 
the  well-known  Master  of  the  College  being  at 
that  time  Vice-Chancellor  of  the  University, 
and  it  is  from  his  hostess  on  that  occasion, 
who  did  so  much  to  make  Oxford  agreeable 
to  the  visitors  of  those  days,  that  I  have  re- 
ceived a  vivid  picture  of  Tourgu^nieff.  The 
presence  of  the  tall  Russian  amongst  the 
University  guests,  his  whole  personality,  made 
a  great  and  sudden  impression  even  on  those 
to  whom  he  was  but  a  name.  He  spoke 
readily  and  with  great  cordiality;  his  English 
was  exceedingly  good,  and  the  amenity  of 
the  foreign  guest  was  felt  by  all.  '* 

"The  company  that  was  assembled  at  the 
Vice-Chancellor's,  the  names  of  those  who 
were  to  receive  their  degrees  on  the  following 
day,  and  all  the  circumstances  of  that  Com- 
memoration  have   passed    away    from   Mrs. 


Concerning  Uourgu^nietf  255 

Evans's  recollection.  Only  Tourgu6nieff  re- 
mains, his  look  of  power,  and  especially  his 
wonderful  eyes,  which  flashed  as  he  spoke; 
these  stay  and  cannot  fade  from  the  memory 
of  any  one  who  conversed  with  him.  *' 

He  had  friends  in  England  he  always 
turned  to  with  affection.  The  Cross  family  at 
Weybridge  and  George  Eliot  were  amongst 
these.  He  used  to  stay  with  Mr.  Hall  at 
Six-Mile  Bottom,  near  Cambridge,  and  he 
liked  the  shooting  there.  He  was  an  ad- 
mirable shot.  Mr.  Cross  speaks  of  the  long 
days  they  used  to  spend  out  in  the  woods 
together.  During  one  of  these,  Mr.  Cross, 
who  was  then  a  very  young  man,  asked 
Tourgu6nieff  if  he  had  ever  written  anything 
in  French.  Tourgu6nieff  answered,  **You 
have  never  written  a  book  or  you  would  not 
have  asked  that  question;  a  man  can  only 
write  his  best  in  his  own  language.  When  I 
write  in  Russian  I  am  free,  I  run  without  en- 
ciimbrance;  when  I  write  in  French  I  have 
restraint,  I  have  boots  on  and  advance  more 
slowly;  when  I  write  in  English  I  have  tight 
boots  on.''     But  all  the  same  he  wrote  and 


256  JSIacftsticft  papers 

spoke  English  admirably.  He  was  once  asked 
to  write  down  his  favourite  pursuit.  After  a 
pause  he  wrote  down,  "  Remorseless  Laziness.*' 


Ill 


Any  one  reading  the  life  of  Ivan  Tourgu^- 
nieff,  by  Emile  Haumont,  must  be  painfully 
impressed  by  the  story  of  his  early  bringing  up. 

In  MoumoUy  so  we  are  told,  we  may  find  the 
picture  of  his  violent  and  despotic  mother — 
elsewhere  he  describes  her,  from  his  childish 
recollections,  silent  and  gloomy;  his  father 
elegant,  haughty,  icy.  Strange  to  say,  the 
children  loved  their  parents,  but  they  hardly 
saw  them  except,  indeed,  when  presiding  at 
executions  and  punishments,  which  were  in- 
flicted on  every  occasion. 

One  day  Ivan  was  presented  to  the  poet, 
Dmitrief.  *'I  like  your  fables  pretty  well,'' 
says  the  child,  "but  I  like  Krylof's  better. " 

"  He  was  right, "  says  the  biographer  who 
tells  the  story,  *  *  but  not  the  less  was  he  whipped 
for  saying  so. "  Another  day  he  let  an  old 
lady  see  that  he  thought  her  very  old  and 


Concerning  Uourgu^niett  257 

broken,  and  again  was  he  whipped;  another 
time  one  of  his  parents'  parasites  (the  house 
was  full  of  them)  accused  him  falsely — ^he 
knew  nothing  of  it — ^he  was  whipped ;  in  vain 
he  disclaimed,  every  day  he  was  to  be  whipped 
until  he  confessed;  at  night,  in  despair,  he 
slipped  out  of  his  room  determined  to  run 
away,  and  was  discovered  by  his  tutor,  who 
took  his  part  and  obtained  forgiveness  for 
him.  Later  on,  when  Tourgu6nieff  remem- 
bered his  parents,  it  was  their  severity  which 
first  came  to  his  mind,  and  no  wonder! 
''Sermonised,  beaten,  deprived  of  dinner  day 
after  day;  he  could  remember  walking  in  the 
garden  and  swallowing  with  a  sort  of  desperate 
pleasure  the  salt  tears  as  they  flowed  from  his 
eyes. "  The  account  of  Varvara  Petrovna,  as 
given,  is  something  terrifying.  ' '  Round  about 
her  fell  punishments,  exiles,  deportations,  hu- 
miliations of  every  sort — forced  marriages, 
sudden  separations,  and  blows  which  did  not 
even  spare  her  man  of  business,  Poleakof. '* 

Ivan  suffered  and  learnt  early  to  sympathise 
with  others  and  to  hate  cruelty  and  injustice — 

was  he  not  always  kindness  incarnate  ? 
17 


258  3Blacft9tlcft  papers 

I  have  a  picture  of  Tourgu^nieff  taken 
towards  the  end  of  his  life,  sitting  calm  and 
grave,  resting  his  hand  on  a  stick.  It  was 
given  me  by  the  eminent  Russian  violinist, 
Mr.  Brodsky,  after  a  conversation  during 
which  he  told  me  he  had  known  Tourgu^nieff , 
and  described  how,  as  a  young  man  just 
beginning  his  artist  life  in  London,  he  had, 
to  his  great  pleasure,  received  a  card  of  invita- 
tion from  Madame  Viardot  to  a  musical  party. 
He  arrived  to  the  moment,  before  the  family 
had  come  down,  and  he  asked  the  servant  at 
the  door  whether  Mr.  Tourgu^nieff  was  to  be 
seen.  He  was  told  that  he  was  ill  in  his  room 
upstairs.  Sending  up  his  name,  Mr.  Brodsky 
learned  that  he  would  be  received.  Tourgu^- 
niefi  was  in  bed,  in  great  pain,  but,  according 
to  his  wont,  he  welcomed  his  young  prot^g6 
and  signed  him  to  sit  down.  Then  he  became 
interested  by  degrees  in  the  account  Mr. 
Brodsky  gave  of  his  work  and  his  experiences. 
He  threw  himself  into  the  story  and  began  to 
speak  of  his  own  early  days,  so  that  he  forgot 
his  gout,  which  seemed  suddenly  to  leave  him. 
The  time  went  on  and  on  as  the  young  man 


Concerning  Uourguenietf  259 

sat  listening  to  that  charming  talk;  he  could 
hear  the  music  down  below,  never  heeding 
anything  but  the  fascinating  intercourse  with 
the  master.  As  I  myself,  after  long  years,  lis- 
tened to  the  musician's  description  of  that 
eventful  meeting,  I  realised,  as  I  have  done 
again  and  again,  the  happy  impression  received 
by  those  who  have  come  in  contact  with  that 
large  soul. 

Perhaps  no  one  has  spoken  or  written  of 
Tourgu^nieff  with  more  charm  and  authority 
than  Henry  James,  whose  intercourse  with 
him  was  a  reality,  not  a  passing  impression. 

An  old  friend,  who  did  not  herself  care  for 
conventions,  told  me  that  she  went  one  day 
with  her  daughter  to  call  upon  Madame 
Viardot,  to  take  leave  of  her  just  before  she 
returned  to  Paris  after  that  enforced  resi- 
ence  in  England  in  the  winter  of  187 1.  It 
was  in  the  Wimpole  Street  region,  and  as  they 
were  reaching  the  door  they  saw  a  figure 
advancing,  half  hidden  by  countless  white 
frills  rising  one  above  the  other.  It  was  no 
ghost,  it  was  Tourgu6nieff  carrying  a  clothes- 
basket  full  of  freshly-ironed  dresses,  straight 


26o  35lacft5ttcft  papers 

from  some  foreign  laundry.  The  house  was  in 
confusion,  he  explained,  the  frocks  were  ab- 
solutely needed  by  the  ladies,  and  as  no  one 
else  could  go  he  himself  had  been  to  fetch 
them  home — so  much  for  a  bom  gentle- 
man's simplicity  and  natural  dignity. 

Henry  James  says  of  him:  "  He  was  natural 
to  an  extraordinary  degree;  I  do  not  think  I 
have  ever  seen  his  match  in  this  respect,  cer- 
tainly not  among  people  who  bear,  as  he  did 
at  the  same  time,  the  stamp  of  the  highest  cul- 
tivation. .  .  .  He  had  not  in  his  mind  a 
grain  of  prejudice.  He  was  imaginative, 
speculative,  anything  but  literal.  .  .  .  Our 
Anglo-Saxon,  Protestant,  moralistic,  conven- 
tional standards  were  far  away  from  him,  and 
he  judged  things  with  a  freedom  and  spon- 
taneity in  which  I  found  a  perpetual  re- 
freshment. His  sense  of  beauty,  his  love  of 
truth  and  right,  were  the  foundations  of  his 
nature.     .     .     ,** 

IV 

How  many  voices  have  spoken  of  him  with 


ConcetninG  Uoutguenieff  261 

a  full  heart !  "  The  great  Muscovite  has  been 
to  see  us!"  wrote  George  Sand  once  from 
Nohant.  "What  a  lovable  and  noble  man! 
and  how  modest!  He  is  adored  here,  and  I 
set  the  example  in  adoring  him. " 

Ivan  Tourgu^nieff's  own  generous  tribute 
to  George  Sand  when  she  was  attacked  will  not 
be  forgotten:  "  It  is  eight  years  since  I  saw  her 
for  the  first  time/*  he  wrote  at  the  time  of  her 
death;  ''the  enthusiastic  admiration  which  she 
excited  in  me  formerly  was  gone.  I  no  longer 
adored  her,  but  it  was  not  possible  to  enter  into 
her  private  life  without  becoming  her  adorer 
in  another  sense — ^a  better  one,  perhaps;  each 
one  felt  at  once  that  he  was  in  the  presence  of 
an  infinitely  rich  and  benevolent  nature  where 
all  egotism  had  long  been  reduced  to  cinders 
by  the  inextinguishable  flame  of  poetic  en- 
thusiasm and  faith  in  the  ideal,  and  besides 
all  this  there  was  a  certain  unconscious  aureole, 
something  high,  free  and  heroic;  believe  me, 
George  Sand  is  one  of  our  saints.*' 

Not  very  long  ago  some  letters  were  pub- 
lished in  the  Revue  Hehdomadaire  written  by 


262  JSlacftstlcft  papers 

him  to  Madame  Viardot,  beginning  in  1848, 
some  three  years  after  their  first  acquaintance. 
Tourgu^nieff,  after  travelling  hither  and 
thither  about  the  world,  had  taken  to  litera- 
ture as  a  profession,  and  his  mother  indig- 
nantly cast  him  off  and  ceased  to  send  him 
money.  Then  it  was  that  the  Viardots  lent 
him  their  country  house  (Courtavenel,  in  the 
Brie  country),  where  he  lived  alone — ^melan- 
choly, hard  at  work,  contented,  penniless.  On 
one  occasion  he  writes  that  he  had  bought 
some  leverets  with  his  last  franc.  He  de- 
scribes the  trees,  the  stars,  the  thoughts  which 
come  to  him.  He  writes  in  French.  The 
ideas  and  the  words  respond  to  each  other.  ^ 

Here  is  a  minute  to  be  lived  over  with 
Tourgu^nieff: 

*' Before  going  to  bed  every  evening  I 
take  a  short  walk  in  the  courtyard.  Yester- 
day I  stood  upon  the  bridge  and  listened. 
These  are  the  different  sounds  which  I  heard: 

1  The  translation  is  difficult,  and  makes  one  realise  how 
much  more  difficult  translation  from  the  Russian  must  be. 
Russian  scholars  tell  one  that  it  is  just  possible  to  render 
Tolstoi  into  another  language;  the  subtle  charm  and  beauty 
of  Tourgu^nieff's  style  cannot  be  conveyed. 


Concerning  xrourguenteff  263 

''The  sound  of  the  rush  of  the  blood  in  my 
ears  and  in  my  breath. 

''The  shivering,  the  continual  whispering  of 
the  leaves,  the  quizz  of  the  grasshoppers — 
there  were  four  of  them  in  the  trees  of  the 
courtyard. 

*'The  fish  rose  to  the  surface  of  the  water, 
making  a  soft  noise  which  was  like  a  kiss. 

"  From  time  to  time  a  drop  fell  with  a  little 
silvery  sound. 

"A  branch  snapped.  .  .  .  Who  had  broken 
it  ?  That  dull  sound ;  is  it  the  fall  of  steps  upon 
the  road  ?  is  it  a  distant  voice  ? 

"And  then,  suddenly,  the  shrill  soprano  of 
a  gnat  comes  and  rings  in  one's  ear.  *' 

Here  is  another  picture,  that  of  the  poplar 
trees  at  Courtavenel  in  the  summer-time.  It 
is  like  reading  a  Corot: 

"All  these  days  the  weather  has  been  very 
fine.  But  there  has  been  a  great  wind  which 
from  time  to  time  has  blown  very  hard  and 
persistently. 

"  The  stir  which  it  made  in  the  leaves  suited 
the  poplar  trees  very  well.  They  sparkled 
bravely  in  the  sunshine.     I  must  tell  you  one 


264  Blacftsticft  ipapers 

thing  I  have  observed,  that  is,  that  a  motion- 
less poplar  looks  very  dull  and  very  stupid 
{^colter  et  trbs  hete),  unless,  indeed,  it  should  be 
in  the  evening,  when  the  leaves  look  almost 
black  against  the  rose-depths  of  the  sky.  In 
that  case  everything  must  keep  hushed ;  only 
the  leaves  at  the  very  summit  have  permission 
to  stir  a  little. 

**By  the  way,  I  have  been  amusing  myself 
by  discovering  trees  in  the  neighbourhood 
which  have  their  own  physiognomy  and  in- 
dividuality .  .  .  there  is  the  horse-chestnut 
in  the  countyard  which  I  have  christened 
Hermann:  I  am  looking  for  his  Dorothea;  there 
is  a  birch  at  Maisonfieur  which  is  very  like  a 
Gretchen;  an  oak  has  been  baptised  Homer; 
there  is  an  elm  which  is  an  amiable  ne'er  do 
weely  and  another  prim  virtue.'' 

At  another  time  he  writes  from  Paris  to 
Madame  Viardot,  who  was  travelling  about  in 
Germany  during  these  months,  winning  great 
victories  on  the  stage  wherever  she  went: 
*' All  this  week  I  have  scarcely  left  the  house; 
I  have  worked  tremendously.  Never  did 
ideas  come  to  me  so  abundantly ;  they  came  by 


Concerning  ZonvQwenicU  265 

dozens.  I  reminded  myself  of  a  poor  devil  of 
an  innkeeper  in  a  little  town  who  suddenly 
finds  himself  overwhelmed  by  an  avalanche  of 
guests.  He  ends  by  losing  his  head,  and  no 
longer  knows  where  to  place  his  company/' 
One  more  picture  comes  from  Paris;  it  is 
impossible  to  translate  the  charming  melodi- 
ous French. 

"September  20th. 

"  It  has  been  splendid  weather  for  the  last 
two  or  three  days.  I  take  long  walks  in  the 
Tuileries  before  my  dinner;  I  watch  a  crowd 
of  children  there  at  play ;  all  charming  as  little 
loves  and  all  so  prettily  dressed ;  their  grave, 
infantile  caresses,  their  little  pink  cheeks 
freshened  by  the  first  touch  of  winter,  the 
placid,  kindly  look  of  the  nurses,  the  beautiful 
red  sun  beyond  the  great  horse-chestnuts,  the 
statues,  the  sleeping  waters;  the  grand,  som- 
bre-grey colour  of  the  Tuileries — ^all  this 
pleases  me  infinitely,  rests  and  refreshes  me 
after  a  morning's  work.  I  muse — ^not  vaguely 
German  fashion — at  what  I  am  doing,  at 
what  I  have  got  to  do.  '* 

Soon  after,  whilst  still  leading  this  solitary 


266  Blacft6ticft  papers 

life,  his  mother^s  serious  illness  called  him 
back  to  Russia. 

To  Monsieur  Viardot  he  wrote  before  he 
started  in  June,  1850: 

"  Is  not  the  true  home  there  where  one  has 
found  the  most  affection,  and  where  the  heart 
and  the  spirit  feel  most  at  ease? — ^there  is  no 
place  upon  earth  that  I  love  as  well  as  Court- 
avenel.  You  have  in  me,  dear  Viardot,  a 
true  and  unchanging  friend.  Be  happy — 
soyez  heureux — I  wish  you  all  that  there  is  of 
good  in  this  world.  We  shall  meet  again  one 
day,  a  happy  day  for  me,  which  will  amply 
repay  me  for  all  the  sadnesses  which  await 
me. 

There  are  curious  stories  told  of  the  auto- 
cratic old  lady's  end ;  as  she  lay  on  her  death- 
bed, she  tried  to  despoil  her  children ;  she  had 
given  orders  for  forced  sales,  for  houses  and 
farms  to  be  burned  to  the  ground.  Her  mind 
must  have  been  wandering;  happily  she  died 
before  further  harm  was  wrought.  Tourgu6- 
nieff  divided  the  inheritance  with  his  brother, 
leaving  him  the  larger  share  of  the  property; 
he  kept  Sparskoe  for  himself,  the  familiar 


Concerning  XTourguentetf  267 

house  to  which  he  returned  year  after  year 
until  his  death,  accompanied  by  companions 
and  friends.  One  of  the  letters  to  Madame 
Viardot,  dated  September,  1850,  is  written  in 
happy  and  good  spirits;  it  is  full  of  emotion: 

**  Good-morning,  dear,  good,  noble,  ex- 
cellent friend.  Good-morning,  you  who  are 
that  which  is  best  in  the  world.  Give  me 
your  dear  hands  that  I  may  kiss  them.  That 
will  do  me  good  and  will  put  me  into  good 
humour.  There!  That  is  done.  Now  we 
are  going  to  talk.  I  have  to  tell  you  that  you 
are  an  angel  of  goodness  and  that  your  letters 
have  made  me  the  happiest  of  men.  If  you 
knew  what  it  is  to  have  a  friend's  hand  which 
seeks  you  from  so  far  to  place  itself  gently 
upon  you!  The  gratitude  which  one  feels 
reaches  to  adoration.  I  am  greatly  in  need 
of  affection  at  this  moment,  so  lonely  am  I 
here,  therefore  I  cannot  tell  you  how  much 
I  love  those  I  love  and  who  have  some  affec- 
tion for  me.  *' 

Tourgu6nieff  was  writing  fully  to  Flaubert 
in  1876;  he  was  translating  Flaubert's  book, 
La  Legende  de  Saint  Julien  VHospitalier.     We 


268  3Blacftsttcft  papers 

know  how  constant  his  efforts  were  to  help  his 
friends  and  to  make  them  known  to  the 
Russian  public.  Tourguenieff  never  wrote 
better  than  at  this  time,  although,  as  he  says 
in  a  letter  to  Flaubert,  he  is  writing  from  his 
Pathmos,  "  Triste  comme  un  bonnet  de  nuit.  " 
**Have  you  remarked,"  he  continues,  **that 
this  is  the  moment  which  one  generally  chooses 
to  write  to  one's  best  friends?  '*  ''Jecrains  en 
general  les  dames  qui  traduisenty"  he  says;  but 
all  the  same  I  cannot  help  translating  his 
charming  sentences.  He  tells  of  the  green 
of  his  garden,  scattered  with  little  dead 
leaves,  which  reminds  him  vaguely  of  the 
dead  bodies  of  little  children,  ''sycamores 
give  a  thin  and  miserable  shadow  which  is  sad 
to  see;  besides  all  this,  my  brother,  who  was 
to  have  waited  for  me  to  settle  very  important 
affairs  for  me,  has  gone  off  to  Karlsbad,  and 
I  think  I  am  going  to  have  the  gout;  also  I 
am  convinced  that  my  manager  is  robbing  me, 
and  that  I  cannot  get  rid  of  him.  This  is  the 
situation.  The  death  of  Madame  Sand  has 
given  me  great  sorrow.  I  know  that  you 
went  to  Nohant  for  the  funeral;  and  I,  who 


Concerning  Uoutguenieft  269 

wanted  to  send  a  telegram  in  the  name  of  the 
Russian  public,  I  was  held  back  by  a  sort  of 
ridiculous  modesty,  by  the  fear  of  criticism 
of  stupid  things.  .  .  .  Poor  dear  Madame 
Sand,  she  loved  us  both,  and  you  most  of  all. 
What  a  heart  of  gold  was  hers,  what  an 
absence  of  all  false  and  unworthy  sentiment ; 
what  a  brave  man  she  was,  and  what  a  good 
woman ! 

"  I  cannot  give  you  any  idea  of  the  silence 
of  this  place — ^not  a  neighbour  for  20  kilo- 
metres, everything  languishing  from  inaction. 
The  house  is  miserable,  but  not  too  hot,  and 
the  furniture  is  good.  I  have  an  admirable 
writing-table,  and  a  double  armchair  with  a 
cane  bottom.  The  sofa  is  dangerous:  one 
goes  to  sleep  as  soon  as  one  lies  down  upon  it. 
I  shall  try  to  avoid  the  sofa.  I  shall  begin  by 
finishing  5^.  Julien, 

**  Standing  in  a  comer  of  the  room  there  is 
an  old  Byzantine  image,  very  black,  framed 
in  silver,  nothing  but  an  immense  face,  rigid, 
lugubrious;  it  worries  me,  but  I  cannot  have 
it  removed — my  servant  would  take  me  for  a 


270  J3lacft6ttcft  t^apers 

pagan,  and  this  is  not  a  thing  to  risk  here. 
Write  me  two  words  more  cheerful  than 
these. " 

In  his  next  letter  to  Flaubert  he  is  still 
writing  of  Madame  Sand:  '*Yes,  Madame 
Sand's  life  was  a  full  one,  and  yet  in  speak- 
ing of  her  one  says  poor  Madame  Sand.  .  .  . 
I  also  remember  the  eyes  of  little  Aurore; 
they  are  wonderful  for  depth  and  for  goodness, 
and  they  are  like  those  of  her  grandmother. 
It  seems  that  Zola  has  written  a  long  article  of 
Madame  Sand  in  the  Revue  Russe;  the  article 
is  fine  but  a  little  hard,  I  am  told.  Zola  can- 
not judge  Madame  S.  in  a  complete  way, 
there  is  too  much  distance  between  them. 
You  are  at  work  at  Croisset ;  well,  I  am  going 
to  surprise  you,  I  have  never  worked  so  well  as 
since  I  was  here.  I  spend  whole  nights  bend- 
ing over  my  desk;  the  illusion  has  seized  me 
again  that  one  can  say  what  one  means 
.  .  .  and  remember  with  all  this  I  am  over- 
whelmed with  business,  with  money  affairs, 
with  farm  accounts  .  .  .  but  St  Julien  suf- 
fers from  this  exuberance  of  activity.  My 
deuce  of  a  novel  {Terres  Vierges)  has  seized 


Concerning  XTourgueniett  271 

me  absolutely;  but  do  not  be  uneasy,  the 
translation  of  St.  Julien  will  appear.    .    .    . 

"  You  want  to  know  the  look  of  my  habita- 
tion: it  is  very  ugly;  it  is  a  house  of  wood, 
very  old,  built  with  planks  painted  in  lilac 
distemper ;  there  is  a  verandah  in  front  covered 
with  climbing  ivy.  The  roofs  are  of  iron,  and 
covered  green;  the  top  is  uninhabitable,  and 
the  windows  are  nailed  up.  This  house  is  all 
that  remains  of  a  vast  habitation  which  was 
burnt  in  1870. 

**  Last  night,  with  your  letter  in  my  pocket, 
I  was  sitting  in  the  front  of  my  verandah; 
before  me  were  some  sixty  countrywomen, 
almost  all  dressed  in  red  and  very  ugly,  one 
alone  excepted,  a  bride  of  sixteen,  who  re- 
sembled in  a  wonderful  way  the  Virgin  of 
San  Sisto  at  Dresden;  they  were  dancing  like 
bears,  and  singing  with  very  harsh  and  hard 
voices,  but  in  good  tune;  it  was  a  little  fSte 
they  had  begged  me  to  organise;  this  was  in- 
deed very  easy — ^two  pails  of  eau  de  vie,  cakes, 
and  nuts,  and  that  was  all.  As  they  got 
excited  I  watched  them,  and  felt  horribly 
sad;  the  little  Virgin  of  San  Sisto  is  called 


2  72  JBlacftsticF?  papers 

Marie,  as  she  ought  to  be.  Enough,  I  will 
write  to  you  again  before  leaving  this;  in  the 
meanwhile  I  embrace  you. — Your  old 

**IvAN  Tourgu:6nieff. 

**P.  5. — ^The  country  here  strikes  me  as 
pale,  as  well  as  the  sky,  the  verdure,  the 
earth;  but  it  is  a  warm  and  golden  paleness; 
it  would  be  only  pretty  if  it  were  not  for  the 
great  lines,  the  great  uniform  spaces  which 
add  grandeur  to  it  all. " 

In  August  he  was  back  at  Bougival  again. 
He  had  finished  Terres  Vierges:  *'  I  must  now 
copy  it  out, "  he  says,  *'  and  it  must  be  ready  in 
two  months,  which  will  not  be  easy.  You 
know  what  it  is  to  copy  out;  there  are  pages 
of  which  not  a  single  line  remains.  *' 

One  cannot  wonder  after  reading  Tourgu^- 
nieff's  account  of  Spasskoio^  that  he  com- 
plains of  other  people's  descriptions.  He  has 
been  reading  Renan's  Souvenirs  d'Enfance. 
He  says:  "  His  article  is  personally  interesting, 
but  what  a  want  of  colour  and  of  life:  I  see 
nothing,  neither  Brittany,  nor  all  the  saints. 


Concetnlno  Uoutguenietf  273 

nor  his  mother,  nor  his  little  girls,  nor  him- 
self. ..." 

There  is  one  characteristic  little  episode 
dated  1 7th  August ,  1877: 

"Caen,  Grand  H6tel  de  la  Place  Roy  ale. 

"Caen,  why  Caen?  will  you  say,  my  dear 
vieux  [Flaubert].  What  the  devil  does  Caen 
mean?  This  is  the  explanation:  the  ladies  of 
the  Viardot  family  are  to  spend  a  fortnight 
by  the  sea,  either  at  Luc,  or  Saint  Aubain, 
and  they  have  sent  me  in  advance  to  find 
lodgings.  I  have  brought  your  letter  with 
me. 

For  a  time  Tourgu6nieff  could  continue  his 
friendly,  kindly  offices  for  those  he  loved, 
then  the  clouds  gathered  and  his  health  failed 
him  utterly.  It  was  six  years  after  this  that 
Madame  Viardot  wrote  the  epilogue  of  their 
long  friendship:  Tourgu^nieff  died  on  Sep- 
tember 3,  1883. 

"He  no  longer  suffered;  for  two  days  he 
had    lost  consciousness,   his  life  was  slowly 

x8 


274  3Blacft6ttcft  papers 

passing  away,"  she  wrote.  *' We  were  all 
round  about  him  ...  he  became  again  as 
beautiful  as  he  had  ever  been.  The  second 
day  after  his  death  his  habitual  look  of 
benevolence  was  there;  one  could  expect  to 
see  him  smile." 

And  indeed  the  smile  of  those  who  have 
belonged  to  the  noble  army  of  the  good  and 
great  on  earth  remains  long  after  they  are 
gone.  Is  it  Chaucer  or  Shakespeare,  is  it 
Mozart,  or  do  nearer  and  dearer  beams  come 
before  our  eyes,  lighting  up  the  way?  Can 
we  not  each  put  our  own  name  to  that  which 
has  made  our  happiness? 


No.  XIII 

CONCERNING  THOMAS  BEWICK 

Written  from  a  Poultry  Farm 

Some  of  us  went  flying  north  one  summer 
morning,  leaving  London  behind  us,  and 
travelling  towards  the  clear  mountain  air  and 
wide-spreading  moors.  At  sunset  we  found 
ourselves  in  an  old  house  in  Northumberland, 
which  was  standing  firm  and  square  upon  the 
slope  of  a  hill — ** Baal's  Hill,"  where  Dniids 
had  once  sacrificed  to  those  terrible  gods  of 
theirs,  but  whence  victims  and  priests  and 
gods  and  midnight  rites  have  all  alike  been 
swept  away  by  time,  that  mightiest  of  broom- 
sticks. All  is  at  peace  and  silent  on  Baal's 
Hill  now  at  midnight,  except  for  the  distant 
cries  of  birds  and  sleepy  animals,  and  of  the 
owls  that  whistle  and  pipe  through  the  dark 

275 


276  JSlact^sttcft  papers 

hours;  perhaps  as  you  lie  sleeping  in  the 
earliest  dawn  you  may  be  awakened  by  the 
whizzing  sound  of  pigeons  cleaving  the  air, 
after  the  owls  have  ceased  to  hoot.  Then 
the  turkey  poults  begin  to  call  from  the 
shrubberies  across  the  lawn,  and  a  matutinal 
burst  follows  from  the  exultant  poultry-yard 
at  the  back  of  the  old  house,  with  far-away 
answering  calls  in  the  adjacent  farm,  or  from 
the  ducks  on  the  island  on  the  lake.  If  you 
are  roused  from  your  bed  and  look  out  through 
the  half-open  shutters  of  the  windows  you 
may  see  the  lawn  softly  alight  in  the  early 
morning  rays,  and  the  little  Dandy  Dinmont 
wildly  careering  after  the  low-flying  swallows. 
By  the  time  you  come  downstairs  the  sun  has 
risen  above  the  ash-trees,  the  whole  place  is 
cheerful  with  nine  o'clock  sunshine,  and  with 
duckings  and  flappings  and  loud  ringing  notes, 
along  with  the  pigeons'  soft  cooing,  and  the 
hoarse  crow  of  the  roosters,  and  the  pipings 
and  chatterings  of  the  rest  of  the  colony. 
Hark  to  the  upraised  voices  of  the  waddling 
fat  ducks  as  they  surround  the  meal  pans 
in  the  poultry-yard;  they  are  haranguing  the 


Concerning  XTbomas  Bewicft  277 

poor  little  lame  wild  duck  who  is  pecked  by 
all  the  rest  for  attempting  to  take  his  share 
in  the  feast  of  life ;  then  mark  the  floundering 
fussified  turkey  poults  making  confusion  as 
they  go,  and  upsetting  the  pan  they  want  to 
monopolise;  and  again,  what  is  this  mysteri- 
ous procession  advancing  from  some  distant 
land,  a  procession  of  wise  birds  from  the  East, 
speckled  with  silver,  robed  in  soft  Oriental 
feathers,  dignified,  inscrutable  on  noiseless 
orange  toes,  passing  in  quiet  decorum  through 
the  crowding  scene! 

It  was  here  in  this  hospitable  northern  home- 
farm,  where  Socrates  himself  might  have  foimd 
intelligent  disciples,  as  well  as  cocks  without 
number  to  sacrifice  to  ^Esculapius,  where  Fairy 
Blackstick  most  certainly  would  have  loved  to 
linger,  that  a  friend  put  Mr.  Austin  Dobson's 
delightful  book  about  Thomas  Bewick  and  his 
pupils  into  our  hands;  and  as  we  read  and 
looked  around  on  Bewick's  country  and  the 
sights  he  loved,  the  book  of  his  work  seemed 
to  be  open  everywhere.  The  skies,  the  trees, 
the  undulating  lines  of  the  hills  and  wolds,  all 
were  repeated  on  the  recording  pages.     The 


2  78  Blacftsticft  papers 

story  so  admirably  told  sent  us  later  on  to 
look  for  Bewick's  own  memoir,  and  for  the 
original  drawings,  at  Newcastle,  where  they 
hang  in  the  museum. 

Few  places  are  to  be  found  in  all  the  rest  of 
England  so  striking  and  varied  in  aspect  as 
Bewick's  native  county.  The  energy  of  Lon- 
don itself  seems  to  throb  in  Newcastle  amid 
its  smoke,  in  its  clash  of  eager  politics,  in  its 
ringing  labouring  streets,  while  beyond  the 
city  spreads  the  long  sea-coast  with  its  old 
castles  and  fastnesses,  and  the  fishing-ports, 
with  their  quaint  wynds  and  gables,  guarded 
by  certain  white-winged  legions  that  go  flying 
and  flashing  out  to  sea  from  the  shores  and 
rocks  where  they  have  built  their  nests. 
Further  inland  lie  the  wide  moors  that  divide 
England  from  Scotland,  and  the  sturdy  farms 
and  stone  cottages,  the  strong  towers  and 
pigeon-cotes  that  have  for  centuries  defied 
the  assaults  of  the  foe,  be  he  wrapped  in 
storm  or  in  tartan.  Fragrant  clover  fields 
scent  the  air,  crossed  by  the  broad  high-roads 
which  the  Romans  first  made,  and  which 
run  by  the  fields  and  coppices  whence  the 


Concetntng  XTbomas  JSewicft  279 

russet  game-birds  start  at  the  sound  of 
footsteps. 

The  Romans  no  longer  come  marching  along 
the  roads,  but  an  army  of  tramps  flying  from 
work  still  passes  continually;  and  along  with 
the  tramps  come  the  Northumbrians  them- 
selves, with  droves  of  cattle,  and  with  great 
hay-carts  loaded  and  guarded  by  their  stately 
waggoners.  Beyond  the  track  is  that  sense 
of  space,  of  fresh  winds  which  Bewick  loved, 
and  which  one  seems  to  find  again  as  one 
looks  at  his  designs. 

To  drive  along  the  crowding  streets  and 
to  step  into  Bewick's  gallery  in  the  Natural 
History  Museum  in  Newcastle,  is  like  stepping 
suddenly  out  of  noise  and  smoke  and  rattle 
into  some  green  grove  where  the  birds  are 
singing.  It  is  a  fairy  exhibition  alive  with 
grace  and  meaning.  The  originals  of  his 
engravings  hang  all  round  the  gallery  in  deli- 
cate studies  and  suggestions,  and  they  cer- 
tainly have  a  special  charm  which  seems 
unattainable  in  their  reproduction,  although 
the  intention  and  sentiment  happily  are  repro- 
duced in  his  delightful  books.     The  sketches 


28o  JSlacftsticft  papers 

themselves  are  indescribably  delicate  and 
finely  felt;  he  takes  a  nib  dipped  in  colour,  a 
fine  hair-brush,  a  tiny  scrap  of  paper,  and  be- 
hold a  whole  scene  of  sylvan  life  rises  up,  a 
real  note  is  striking  in  the  great  concert  of 
nature  into  which  the  designer  now  calls  us. 
A  sense  of  time,  of  space,  surrounds  the  dramas 
and  the  tragedies  which  he  suggests  with  his 
apparently  slight  details.  Sticks,  chips,  nests, 
scraps  of  farmyard  ways,  commonplace  hum- 
ble things,  a  whole  philosophy  is  written  down 
in  these  simple  hieroglyphics.  There  lies  the 
dog  drowned,  his  four  legs  bound  together  by 
a  rope;  the  magpies  come  up,  with  bright 
careful  eyes;  overhead  is  the  flight  of  the 
indifferent  birds,  and  in  the  wet  mud  are  the 
marks  of  the  retreating  footsteps  of  the  man 
who  did  the  deed.  Is  not  this  tragedy?  It 
is  like  the  knocking  at  the  door  in  Macbeth. 

Then,  again,  for  comedy,  who  will  not  recog- 
nise the  humorous  truth  of  the  little  picture 
in  which  the  traveller  is  trying  to  hoist  the 
heavy  sack  upon  his  back  before  he  starts 
once  more  upon  tramp,  while  a  little  demon 
with  horns  and  tail  is  mischievously  pinning 


Concerntng  Ubomas  JSewtcft  281 

down  the  load!  The  moon  is  rising  beyond 
the  five-barred  gate,  and  lighting  up  the  scene 
— the  rocks  and  the  silvering  hedges ;  perhaps 
Bewick,  with  the  rest  of  us,  felt  his  load  heavy 
at  times,  but  he  was  of  that  brave  and  un- 
complaining sort  that  plods  on  steadily  and 
with  single  purpose. 

The  keeper  of  the  museum  showed  us  an 
interesting  series  of  sketches  from  a  caper- 
cailzie, with  a  little  history  belonging  to  it. 
The  stuffed  bird  stood  as  stuffed  birds  do, 
impaled,  with  straw  for  blood,  and  sticks  for 
bones,  and  Bewick  drawing  it  reproduced  a 
stuffed  capercailzie  filled  with  straw,  and  top- 
pling on  its  perch.  Discontented  with  this,  he 
set  to  work  all  over  again ;  and  lo !  the  second 
bird  was  a  capercailzie  so  majestic  and  digni- 
fied and  fiery  of  aspect  that  it  would  seem  to 
belong  to  the  eagles  rather  than  to  its  humbler 
station  in  life.  Then  Bewick  sets  to  work 
again  as  a  true  man  should  do,  and  this  time 
the  living  bird  itself  is  there  upon  the  page, 
neither  more  nor  less  spirited  than  a  caper- 
cailzie should  be.  But  this  is  the  very  essence 
pf  a  True  Gift,  the  natural  apprehension  which 


282  Blacftstlcft  ipapets 

finds  life  and  expression  where  others  only  see 
the  straws. 

The  artist's  erasures,  which  prove  his  in- 
finite care  and  pains,  are  no  less  interesting  in 
some  ways  than  the  actual  drawings  in  this 
charming  exhibition,  so  varied,  so  widely 
reaching.  There  is  a  narrow  little  scrap  of 
paper  about  three  inches  long  on  which  no 
less  than  eight  dogs  in  a  chain  are  depicted, 
each  different  in  type  and  character.  As  for 
plovers  and  choughs,  eider  ducks  and  spoon- 
bills, kites  (lame  and  otherwise),  it  is  a  garden 
of  Eden  for  birds  of  different  kinds,  with 
Northumberland  always  and  everywhere  for 
a  background ;  whether  the  villagers  are  danc- 
ing to  the  music  of  the  three  blind  fiddlers, 
or  the  ships  sailing  by  on  the  sea,  or  horses 
galloping  across  the  fields,  or  the  gallows 
standing  by  the  roadside,  it  is  always  North- 
umberland round  about.  One  of  the  most 
touching  of  the  pictures  is  called  Waiting 
for  Death.  It  was  left  unfinished  by  Bewick 
when  he  died.  The  old  white  horse  stands 
by  the  blasted  tree,  the  house  is  falling  to  the 
ground;  a  sigh  and  a  last  farewell  seem  to 


Concerning  Ubomas  Bewicft  283 

reach  you  as  you  look  not  unmoved.  An- 
other picture  is  also  to  be  seen,  one  of  the 
last  he  ever  drew,  where  all  is  at  peace,  and 
the  parting  over.  It  represents  a  tranquil 
country  scene;  the  funeral  passing  down  the 
sloping  field  to  the  ferry,  where  the  boat  is 
waiting  to  carry  this  loyal  knight  to  his  last 
rest  in  Ovingham  churchyard. 

It  is  said  that  Bewick's  family  did  not  like 
the  portrait  of  Bewick  by  Ramsay,  which 
forms  the  frontispiece  to  Mr.  Austin  Dobson's 
book.  The  drawing  represents  a  vigorous 
old  man,  with  a  face  full  of  imagination  and 
thought;  the  eyes  have  that  outlooking  ex- 
pression which  is  so  characteristic  of  the  artis- 
tic temper.  He  is  dressed  in  a  swallow-tailed 
coat  and  knee-breeches;  he  leans  upon  his 
stick,  and  seems  watching  the  distant  line  of 
the  hills.  There  is  another  most  charming 
portrait  in  Bewick's  own  gallery  at  New- 
castle, painted  by  Goods.  This  one  represents 
an  old  man  sitting  in  a  chair,  and  dressed  in 
grey  breeches  with  shoes  and  woollen  stockings, 
and  with  the  time-honoured  frill  to  his  shirt 
which  also  belonged  to  Sir  Joshua  and  to  the 


284  JSlacftsticft  papers 

Duke  of  Wellington.  The  earnest,  bland, 
strong  face  seems  absolutely  characteristic  of 
this  true  artist,  whose  genius  was  so  open  to 
receive,  so  delicate  to  describe  its  impressions. 
Bewick,  besides  his  love  for  nature  and  his 
power  to  depict  it,  possessed  that  delightful 
play  of  mind  which  some  call  humour,  and 
which  is  assuredly  the  characteristic  of  true 
sympathy.  I  write  advisedly,  for  humour 
seems  to  me,  interest  combined  with  affection 
and  truthful  criticism,  as  opposed  to  that 
interest  without  light  or  shade  which  is  apt 
to  grow  monotonous  in  its  unvarying  note 
of  reverence  and  blind  reiteration,  or  painful 
in  its  modem  attitude  of  shrug  and  sarcastic 
laughter. 

Some  of  us  may  remember  how  Frank  was 
cured  of  playing  with  his  fingers,  and  how  at 
last  he  stood  opposite  to  his  father  and  held 
his  hands  perfectly  still.  *'The  servant,  who 
was  bringing  some  things  of  his  out  of  the 
chair  in  which  M.  Edgeworth  came,  was 
desired  to  give  Frank  a  book  which  was  in 
the  front  pocket  of  the  chair  and  which  was 
a   copy   of    Bewick's    quadrupeds.     In    this 


Concerning  Ubomas  Bewicft  285 

book  Frank's  practical  father  immediately 
writes  a  suitable  inscription.  'This  book 
given  to  Frank,  October  27th,  1798,  by  his 
father,  as  a  mark  of  approbation  for  his 
having  at  six  years  old  cured  himself  of  a 
foolish  habit.'" 

Bewick's  memoirs,  which  are  less  known 
than  they  deserve  to  be,  are  ingenuous  and 
most  convincing,  set  to  the  accompaniment  of 
shrewd  and  delightful  drawings.  Bewick  was 
a  son  of  the  soil  if  ever  there  was  one,  and 
Northtimberland  must  seem  to  many  of  us  a 
more  beautiful  place  when  we  think  of  his 
happy  life-long  pilgrimage  among  its  moors, 
of  his  patient  wanderings  in  winter  time  and 
summer  time,  of  his  love  for  it  all.  His  serene 
and  observant  eyes  absorbed  the  light  from  the 
land  while  he  listened  to  the  voices  every- 
where; from  the  ditches  and  hedges,  from  the 
rustling  trees,  from  the  rushing  streams. 
Above  all  he  realised  the  elements  of  life  in 
still  life,  and  of  humanity  in  that  natural  life 
in  which  he  delighted.  He  describes  himself 
in  his  memoirs  when  quite  a  little  child,  cover- 
ing the  gravestones  and  the  floor  of  the  church- 


286  3Blacft0ticft  papers 

porch  with  a  bit  of  chalk,  and  "figuring" 
whatever  he  had  seen.  At  that  time  he  had 
never  heard  of  the  word  drawing,  and  the  only 
paintings  he  knew  were  those  of  the  king's 
arms  in  the  church  or  the  signs  of  the  public- 
houses  in  Ovingham,  the  Black  Bull,  the 
White  Horse,  the  Salmon,  and  the  Hounds 
and  Hare.  *'I  always  thought,"  he  said,  *'I 
could  make  a  far  better  hunting-scene  than 
the  latter;  the  others  were  beyond  my  hand. " 
Then  he  describes  how  a  friend  in  compassion 
furnished  him  with  paper:  "  Pen  and  ink,  and 
the  juice  of  the  brambleberry,  made  a  grand 
change.  Of  patterns  and  drawings  I  had 
none;  the  beasts  and  birds  which  enlivened 
the  beautiful  scenery  of  woods  and  wilds 
surrounding  my  native  hamlet,  furnished  me 
with  an  endless  supply  of  subjects. 

"I  now,  in  the  estimation  of  my  rustic 
neighbours,"  he  continues,  ''became  an  emi- 
nent painter.  ..." 

His  admiring  neighbours  are  to  be  numbered 
by  thousands  to-day;  and  which  of  us  that 
knows  his  drawings  is  not  his  neighbour?  His 
touch  when  he  is  at  his  best  is  so  vigorous,  so 


Concerning  XEbomas  JSewicft  287 

certain,  that  seeing  his  work  brings  back  some 
of  the  actual  delight  of  the  places  themselves, 
now  revisited  in  the  companionship  of  this 
most  conscientious  and  ardent  spirit.  Be- 
wick, as  I  have  said,  possesses  that  natural 
apprehension  which  is  the  very  essence  of 
genius.  He  draws  a  falling  leaf,  a  thumb- 
mark;  he  draws  the  claw  of  a  bird,  the  fluffy 
feather  dropped  in  its  sudden  flight ;  and  each 
is  perfect  in  its  own  degree.  Bewick  can  draw 
a  summer's  day;  we  may  see  the  painter  him- 
self standing  in  the  very  heart  of  June  slaking 
his  thirst  at  the  fountain;  he  can  draw  snow 
and  a  wintry  scene  in  all  its  silence  and  frozen 
beauty.  He  can  draw  the  song  of  a  bird,  or 
the  howls  of  the  dog  that  has  just  upset  the 
stew-pot;  he  can  even  draw  abstract  sensa- 
tions, such  as  rest,  stillness,  terror,  content. 
What  human  being  could  look  without  delight 
at  one  of  those  footpieces  in  which  the  cows 
are  drinking  as  they  stand  in  the  river  among 
the  flying  swallows  and  the  magpies? 

The  story  of  Bewick's  boyhood  is  told  by 
himself  in  detail.  "Now,"  as  Mr.  Dobson 
says,  "  he  is  taming  a  runaway  horse  by  riding 


2S8  BlacfeBtlcF?  papers 

it  barebacked  over  the  sykes  and  bums;  now 
frightening  oxen  into  the  river  for  the  pleas- 
ure of  hearing  the  'delightful  dash ' ;  now 
scampering  off  naked  over  the  fells  with  his 
companions  in  imitation  of  the  savages  in 
Robinson  Crusoe/'  Mr.  Dobson  also  quotes 
from  the  lovely  passage  in  which  Bewick 
describes  how  from  his  earliest  childhood  by 
the  little  window  at  his  bed-head  he  had 
listened  to  the  flooded  bum,  or  watched  from 
the  byre-door  the  rarer  birds,  the  wood- 
cocks, the  snipes,  the  redwings,  the  fieldfares, 
which  in  winter  made  their  unwonted  appear- 
ance in  the  frozen  landscape.  When  he  was 
fourteen  he  was  sent  from  Ovingham  to  New- 
castle to  learn  engraving  from  Mr.  Ralph 
Beilby.  He  liked  his  master,  he  liked  the 
business:  *'But  to  part  from  the  country  and 
to  leave  all  its  beauties  behind  me  with  which 
I  had  been  all  my  life  charmed  in  an  extreme 
degree — and  in  a  way  I  cannot  describe — I 
can  only  say  my  heart  was  like  to  break,  and 
as  we  passed  along  I  inwardly  bade  farewell 
to  the  whining  wilds,  to  Mickly  bank,  and  to 
the  Stobcross  hill."     Then  he  settles  down  to 


Concerning  Ubomas  Bewtcft  289 

the  assiduous,  laborious  life.  Bewick  him- 
self enumerates  the  works  he  was  employed 
upon.  Pipe-moulds,  bottle-moulds,  brass 
clock-faces,  coffin-plates,  stamps,  seals,  bill- 
heads and  cyphers,  and  crests  for  silversmiths. 
In  the  Newcastle  Museum  are  some  of  the 
shop-signs  and  stamps  designed  by  him, 
advertisements  of  millinery,  of  "Bird's  fash- 
ionable drapery, "  engraved  as  on  an  ornament 
to  head  the  bills. 

Bewick  once  came  away  to  London  whither 
his  fame  had  preceded  him,  and  where  friends 
and  abundant  orders  for  work  were  in  waiting. 
For  a  few  months  he  paced  the  Strand  and  its 
adjacent  streets  on  his  way  to  and  from  his 
work;  he  spent  his  evenings  in  Brook  Street, 
where  instead  of  asking  for  bread  and  milk  he 
'*  now  learnt  to  call  for  a  pint  of  porter,  **  else- 
where he  describes  his  first  draught  of  brandy 
and  water.  He  frequented  Westminster  Ab- 
bey, but  he  said  that  nothing  he  found  in 
London  could  ever  compensate  for  the  ab- 
sence of  peace,  of  natural  space,  and  old 
associations,  and  that  he  had  rather  herd 
sheep  at  five  shillings  a  week  than  earn  guineas 


290  Blacftsticft  papers 

and  fame  in  this  world  of  extremes.  "The 
country  of  my  old  friends,  the  manners  of  the 
people  of  that  day,  the  scenery  of  Tyneside, 
seemed  altogether  to  form  a  paradise  for  me, 
and  I  longed  to  see  it  again." 

He  turned  wistfully  to  the  something  be- 
yond ;  to  the  point  where  spirit  and  where  mat- 
ter meet;  the  personal  vibration  between  man 
and  nature,  which  is  the  soul  of  immaterial 
things.  Where  that  point  of  meeting  exists 
is  different  for  every  one  of  us,  and  each  living 
soul  in  turn  has  to  try  to  apprehend  it  for 
itself. 

As  he  strode  along  the  busy  London  streets, 
Bewick  knew  that  his  heart  was  in  the  north, 
far  away  by  Tyneside  among  his  early  haunts, 
listening  with  delight  to  the  murmuring  of  the 
flooded  bum  which  passed  his  father's  house, 
remembering  the  times  when  he  woiild  leap 
from  bed  to  watch  the  water's  varying  aspects, 
or  follow  the  sheep  through  the  wreaths  of 
snow  as  they  sought  shelter  from  the  drifts 
on  the  fells  "under  the  low  braes  overhung 
with  whins/' 


Concerning  Zbomas  BewtcFi  291 

So  he  went  back  to  his  own  home  and  his 
own  people,  and  spent  the  remainder  of  his 
honourable  faithful  life  among  them. 


THE  END 


By  Arthur  Christopher  Benson 

Fellow  of  Magdalene  College,  Cambridge 

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Shelburne  Essays 

By  Paul  Elmer  More 

5  vols.     Crown  octavo. 
Each,  net,  $1.25.     (By  mail,  $1.35) 

Contents 

First  Series:  A  Hermit's  Notes  on  Thoreau— The  SoH- 
tude  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  —  The  Origins  of  Haw- 
thorne and  Poe — The  Influence  of  Emerson — The  Spirit 
of  Carlyle  —  The  Science  of  English  Verse  —  Arthur 
Symons :  The  Two  Illusions — The  Epic  of  Ireland — 
Two  Poets  of  the  Irish  Movement — Tolstoy ;  or,  The 
Ancient  Feud  between  Philosophy  and  Art  —  The  Re- 
ligious Ground  of  Humanitarianism. 

Second  Series  :  Elizabethan  Sonnets — Shakespeare's  Son- 
nets— Lafcadio  Hearn — The  First  Complete  Edition  of 
Hazlitt  —  Charles  Lamb  —  Kipling  and  FitzGerald  — 
George  Crabbe  —  The  Novels  of  George  Meredith  — 
Hawthorne:  Looking  before  and  after  —  Delphi  and 
Greek  Literature — Nemesis  :  or,  The  Divine  Envy. 

Third  Series  :  The  Correspondence  of  William  Cowper — 
Whittier  the  Poet— The  Centenary  of  Sainte-Beuve— 
The  Scotch  Novels  and  Scotch  History — Swinburne — 
Christina  Rossetti — Why  is  Browning  Popular? — A  Note 
on  Byron's  "Don  Juan" — Laurence  Sterne — ^J.  Henry 
Shorthouse — The  Quest, 

Fourth  Series  :  The  Vicar  of  Morwenstow — Fanny  Bur- 
ney— A  Note  on  "  Daddy  "  Crisp — George  Herbert — John 
Keats — Benjamin  Franklin — Charles  Lamb  Again — Walt 
Whitman — William  Blake — The  Theme  of  Paradise  Lost 
— The  Letters  of  Horace  Walpole. 

Fifth  Series:  The  Greek  Anthology  —  The  Praise  of 
Dickens — George  Gissing — Mrs.  Gaskell — Philip  Freneau 
— Thoreau's  Journal — The  Centenary  of  Longfellow — 
Donald  G.  Mitchell— James  Thomson  ("  B.  V.")--Ches- 
terfield— Sir  Henry  Wotton. 


A  Few  Press  Criticisms  on 

Shelburne  Essays 

**  It  is  a  pleasure  to  hail  in  Mr.  More  a  genuine  critic,  for 
genuine  critics  in  America  in  these  days  are  uncommonly 
scarce.  ,  ,  .  We  recommend,  as  a  sample  of  his  breadth, 
style,  acumen,  and  power  the  essay  on  Tolstoy  in  the  present 
volume.  That  represents  criticism  that  has  not  merely 
a  metropolitan  but  a  world  note.  .  .  .  One  is  thoroughly 
grateful  to  Mr.  More  for  the  high  quality  of  his  thought,  his 
serious  purpose,  and  his  excellent  style.** — Harvard  GradU" 
ates^  Magazim. 

"We  do  not  know  of  any  one  now  writing  who  gives 
evidence  of  a  better  critical  equipment  than  Mr.  More.  It 
is  rare  nowadays  to  find  a  writer  so  thoroughly  familiar  with 
both  ancient  and  modem  thought.  It  is  this  width  of  view, 
this  intimate  acquaintance  with  so  much  of  the  best  that  has 
been  thought  and  said  in  the  world,  irrespective  of  local 
prejudice,  that  constitute  Mr.  More's  strength  as  a  critic. 
He  has  been  able  to  form  for  himself  a  sound  literary  canon 
and  a  sane  philosophy  of  life  which  constitute  to  our  mind 
his  peculiar  merit  as  a  critic." — Independent. 

•*He  is  familiar  with  classical.  Oriental,  and  English 
literature;  he  uses  a  temperate,  lucid,  weighty,  and  not 
ungraceful  style ;  he  is  aware  of  his  best  predecessors,  and  is 
apparently  on  the  way  to  a  set  of  philosophic  principles 
which  should  lead  him  to  a  high  and  perhaps  influential 
place  in  criticism.  .  .  .  We  believe  that  we  are  in  the 
presence  of  a  critic  who  must  be  counted  among  the  first  who 
take  literature  and  life  for  their  theme.** — London  Speaker^ 


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